Chandra Méndez-Ortiz is a painter and mixed-media collagist based in Boston, MA. Born in Paterson, NJ and raised in Tampa, FL, she holds a BA from Florida State University, a post-baccalaureate in painting from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and an MS in Art Education from Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Her work is in conversation with the history of mark-making, drawing, painting, and collage honoring and reimagining how people of color — particularly Black people — have navigated and shaped American life.
She is currently at work on Love Letters to the Culture: A Century Cycle, 1930–2030, tracing a century of cultural and political history through personal and family migration stories. In 2023, after serving as Executive Director of Artward Bound and co-director of Boston’s Radical Imagination for Racial Justice grant program at MassArt, she returned to full-time studio practice. Her work has been exhibited at Gallery Kayafas and the MassArt Art Museum.