Some memories stay with us because we choose to remember them. Others remain because we turn them into something tangible.

For visual artist Melina Mello, art has become a way of doing exactly that. Born and raised in Belém do Pará, in the heart of the Amazon, her work is deeply connected to the places, people, traditions, and stories that have shaped her. But her practice reaches beyond regional imagery. Memory, identity, human experience, and the emotions attached to seemingly ordinary things are equally important parts of her visual language.

Working with acrylic paint, ink, oil pastel, plaster, string, and texture, Mello creates expressive works that are less concerned with simply reproducing what she sees and more interested in what an image can make us feel.

In this conversation with Pice Magazine, she talks about growing up surrounded by the stories and landscapes of the Amazon, discovering her own artistic language, the unexpected places where ideas begin, and why artists cannot afford to wait for the perfect moment to create.

Can you tell us about your journey as an artist? What inspired you to pursue art, and how has your style evolved over the years?

My relationship with art began in a very natural way. From an early age, I felt a certain restlessness about simply drawing on paper or limiting myself to copying characters that already existed. When I spent time at my grandmother’s house, I asked her if I could draw scenes from nature on the wall of her backyard. I was still very young, but that was when I began to realize how much I was attracted to the process of creating, and especially to the possibility of visualizing things that we cannot always express in words: a memory, a feeling, a place, or a particular moment in our lives.

Over time, art stopped being simply something I enjoyed doing and became one of the main ways I found to understand and communicate what I had experienced and what I felt.

Being born and raised in Belém inevitably influenced the way I see the world. The stories I learned at school and the knowledge surrounding the enchanted beings of the region fascinated me. I also started reading at an early age, largely because of my mother, who has always been a writer. She taught me about Indigenous peoples, the Amazonian fauna and flora, and all those things made my imagination travel. I imagined the colors, landscapes, traditions, people, and the richness that existed around me. 

Naturally, that imagery found its way into my artistic practice. But as I matured as an artist, I realized that my work did not need to be limited to the place I come from. I became increasingly interested in memory, feelings, human experiences, and the meanings we give to seemingly ordinary things. 

My style changed along with me. Over the years, I experimented with different materials and techniques, including acrylic paint, ink, oil pastel, and textures. In the beginning, I was probably more concerned with the final appearance of a work. Today, I am much more interested in what an image can communicate, provoke, or make someone feel. 

I have also realized that I do not identify with ideas that feel vague or too silent to me. My language tends to move in the opposite direction. I like presence, intensity, color, and images that provoke a reaction. For me, art communicates better when there is a surprise, an impact, when something in the work makes us stop and look again. 

Perhaps that is one of the biggest changes in my journey. Today, I do not want to create something that is simply visually interesting. I want there to be an intention behind the image. Whether it begins with a memory, an experience, a story, or a feeling, I want my work to have something to say, and not be afraid to say it.

What themes or messages do you aim to convey through your artwork, and how do you go about expressing them visually?

My work comes from human experiences, identity, and the emotional relationships we build with people, places, and their stories. Belém and the Amazon are an important part of my foundation and of the way I learned to see the world, but they are not the only subjects in my work.

At the moment, I am developing a piece that comes from an uneasiness about the influence of social media on our lives and the effects that are not always positive. I want to explore issues such as addiction, isolation, and idleness, transforming these reflections into a visual narrative that provokes the viewer.

Can you walk us through your creative process? How do you start a new piece, and what techniques or materials do you prefer to use?

My creative process usually begins spontaneously. I carry a small notebook with me where I write down ideas as soon as they appear. It is already quite full, and some of my favorite ideas have come at the most unexpected moments, while exercising, running, listening to music, watching a film, or simply observing something around me.

I do not usually make many preliminary drawing sketches before painting. Instead, I like to write about each work. Writing helps me visualize what I am thinking and get those ideas out of my head. For me, it is easier to develop a text around an idea than to necessarily sketch it before taking it to the canvas. Writing helps me organize the images, feelings, and elements I want to explore.

From those notes and texts, I begin thinking about how to transform the idea into an image, considering the composition, colors, and materials that can express it best.

At the moment, acrylic paint is my favorite material, but I love experimenting. I also work with plaster, string, and oil pastel, incorporating different materials and textures into my pieces.

There is another characteristic that is very present in my process: I like to paint with my hands, literally. In almost all of my works, there are parts made not only with brushes, but with my thumbs, index fingers, and other movements of my hands. I enjoy that feeling of getting my hands into the material and having a more direct relationship with it.

For me, the technique does not have to come before the idea. First, I think about what I want to express. From there, I discover which materials, gestures, and textures can give form to what I imagined.

What challenges have you faced in your artistic career, and how have you overcome them? Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?

I believe one of the biggest challenges in my journey has been stopping myself from waiting for the perfect moment to create.

For a long time, I realized that I was waiting for something to happen in my life, a change, or simply the desire to appear, before I felt ready enough to produce. But art, for me, is not just something I do when I am inspired. It is also my work and a way of making a living.

There is a paradox in that. When I spend too much time without creating, I miss art, and that makes me sad. At the same time, that sadness can make me create even less, forming a difficult cycle to break. Learning to recognize that pattern was very important for me.

Over time, I noticed something very concrete: almost every time I managed to break out of a period of inactivity and started creating and showing my work again, things began to happen. I sold works, attracted people who were interested in what I was creating, received commissions, and new opportunities appeared. Today, I even have works that are part of an important collection in my city, which makes me very happy.

So my main advice to other artists is: do not wait until you feel perfectly well or perfectly inspired to begin. Inspiration is important, but we cannot depend on it in order to create. Sometimes, it is the simple act of starting that gives us the desire to continue.

If you do not move your work forward, it is difficult to expect the world to move it for you. I learned that through experience. Whenever I returned to creating, exhibiting, and sharing my work, opportunities began to appear again.

I think that has been one of the most important lessons art has taught me. We often wait for something outside of ourselves to change before we allow ourselves to change. In reality, the movement needs to happen in the opposite direction.

Change begins from the inside out.

How do you see the role of art in society, and what impact do you hope your work has on your audience? Are there any particular responses or interactions with viewers that stand out to you?

I believe art has a very important role in society, something so significant that it is difficult to put into words, but I will try.

For me, art is something that connects with people’s spirits and can make us feel something similar to what we experience when we fall in love. It is deeply intimate and, at the same time, immense. How could something like that not be important?

Art can communicate things that do not always find space or words to be expressed. It records eras, preserves memories, questions behaviors, and allows us to recognize parts of our own experiences in the experiences of others.

In my work, what I hope for most is to provoke a reaction. I would not want someone to look at one of my works and simply walk past it without feeling anything, as if it were just another image.

That reaction does not necessarily have to be comfortable, nor does it have to be the same reaction I had while creating the work. I like the possibility of a piece awakening curiosity, identification, discomfort, nostalgia, or even inspiring someone to create an interpretation that I had never imagined myself.

When that happens, I am often surprised, and I find that exchange incredibly interesting.

Some of the interactions that stay with me the most happen when someone finds their own memory inside one of my works, recognizes a place, or identifies a feeling they have experienced themselves. At that moment, my art stops belonging only to what I intended to communicate and begins to carry the experience of the person looking at it.

I think that kind of encounter is what interests me most. I begin a work with something I want to say, but I do not want to decide everything it should mean to the person who sees it.

If a work can make someone stop, feel, remember, or talk about something, then an exchange has already happened.

And for me, that is one of the greatest powers of art.

A Language Built to Remember

There is a strong sense of place in Melina Mello’s work, but perhaps what makes her practice particularly compelling is that her paintings do not ask us simply to look at a place. They ask us to remember what a place can mean.

Belém, the Amazon, childhood memories, social questions, personal experiences, and fleeting emotions all become starting points. From there, Mello builds her images through color, texture, writing, and touch.

Her work ultimately seems to return to a simple but powerful idea: some things are worth making permanent.

A place. A feeling. A memory. A story.

And sometimes, a painting is the way we make sure they stay.