is a collection of photographs that inspire subsequent print-based, textile and video art.

Piedra y Sombra (Rock and Shadow) is an analog photography series using a riveting multiple exposure camera process. 

The technique I en-root in producing these images has been the catalyst for a diverse assemblage of multimedia projects. In the work, I combine my cultural and family background from Kiskeya and Borínken with my native birthplace, NYC, and beyond.

Castle on the Concourse, a vertical landscape banner printed on cotton canvas in 2019, tells the story of an overlapping storyline of an almost 300 year-old Brazilian botanical garden, with a now demolished historical landmark building that was once located at 425 Grand Concourse, a 5 story retangular public school building built in 1899 once named P.S. 31. The building, now being replaced by a 277 unit housing complex, showed the transformation out of a side of the glamorous Grand Concourse of The Bronx, that is a true moment in history, now gone. Castle on the Concourse, combining the Bronx and Rio de Janeiro’s beauty, is the inspiration for the “Ascension Guard”, Ascension BJJ’s Academy uniform featured in the Ascension BJJ / Piedra y Sombra Designs rashguard and leggings collection. 

Giardino Bardini is a photograph of an Italian renaissance garden that I discovered in Florence on a scorching hot day. It only recently reopened when I was there! The tiers of gardens, fountains and statues that seemed several stories into the air were a welcome reward for the exhausting trek up the ancient hills. Viewing the architectural diversity was inspiring. Parts had been added onto the gardens from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The terracotta mushroom tops of Italian roofing spanned as far as the eyes could see. 
I had photographed this place and forgot about the film until several years later, when I had scanned the negatives and already begun the black and white series Rock and Shadow of double exposed landscapes + architecture. Surprisingly, this roll of “error” film elatedly fit into the theme of merging building + plant imagery, and classified any color images of this camera process, Piedra y Sombra.

Minnewaska State Park is a long glance at the awe-striking beauty of the Mid-Hudson Valley, namely in New Paltz and Ulster County. This two-way ladder of boulders, shading, foliage and air as the sky breathes through the photograph, was an inspiration for printing large-scale “vertical landscapes”, and presenting these photographs as scrolls of visual information, of chronologies occurring independently of each other and finding a permanent conclusion in the space of the printed work.

(c) 2023 Melanie Gonzalez Art @ SuzannaProductions.com | hola@suzannaproductions.com | 347-948-9738. 05-22-2023.