Melisa López was born in Buenos Aires in 1985 and lives and works between El Calafate and Buenos Aires. Her practice investigates the structural and poetic possibilities of paper through folding, exploring the relationships between geometry, light, and shadow. Starting from flat geometric patterns, she constructs volumetric forms that transform the surface and generate both intrinsic and projected shadows, turning light into a constitutive element of the work.
She works primarily with white or black paper, within a pursuit of formal austerity in which matter and shadow remain in constant transformation. She creates wall-based works and site-specific installations in which architecture, lighting, and the particular conditions of the space actively participate in the composition. In her work, folding allows a delicate and lightweight material to acquire a solid and forceful presence.
Her production revolves around the tension between fragility and solidity, plane and volume, presence and absence. Shadow emerges as an ambiguous zone: it conceals and reveals at the same time, alters the perception of form, and extends the work beyond the physical limits of the paper.
López holds a degree as Professor of Visual Arts from IPSA and completed a Diploma in Exhibition Space Installation at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes and the Museo de la Cárcova. Her solo exhibitions include Demudar at Fundacruz, Río Gallegos (2024), and Modulaciones de la sombra at Galería Laguanacazul, El Calafate (2022). She has also participated in exhibitions and projects at institutions including Museo MACAB, Casa de Santa Cruz, Museo Marítimo de Ushuaia, and Complejo Cultural Santa Cruz, and in 2023 took part in arteBA, Utopía Section, with Galería Laguanacazul.
She received grants from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes in 2013 and 2015, as well as the Premio Estímulo from the Concurso Provincial Cultura y Solidaridad in 2014 and 2015. In her recent production, she continues to deepen an investigation in which paper ceases to function solely as a support and becomes structure, volume, and space.
