Mel Salli
Trust your technolust., 2026
Textile, basted and bound quilt wall hanging
33-1/4 x 53"

Dry clean only. Can use a lint roller.

Artist Statement
An acknowledgement of the anthropocene we are currently inhabiting.

About
Mel is a textile artist based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

BLOSSOMROT, the name of their evolving project, is both a concept and a guiding principle. It refers to the organic imperfection that strikes the tomato flower at the cusp of its maturation-decay arriving at the moment of ripeness. For Salli, blossomrot speaks to the tension between dissolution and renewal, fragility and potential, loss and becoming. It is through this lens that they approach both quilting and tattooing-acts of marking, mending, and recording.

Tattooing, like quilting, is a tactile, embodied form of storytelling. Both practices involve a physical intimacy with material and memory: skin and thread become sites of preservation, resistance, and reinvention. Salli engages tattooing not just as a visual tool, but as a method of imprinting identity, claiming space, and transforming pain into narrative.
Their quilts are modern, punk-infused reimaginings of a historical craft, intertwining abstract forms with visceral, autobiographical content. They challenge the conventions of quilting while honoring the traditions that inform it. The compositions that emerge within each piece subvert expectations, revealing the layered complexity of survival and embodiment.

blossomrot is an invitation to engage with the untold-to examine the beauty in breakdown, the truth within distortion, and the possibility of regeneration through creative rupture. It is an ongoing confrontation with what grows, what decays, and what remains. Mel Salli is a multidisciplinary artist based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a region steeped in the tradition of Pennsylvania Dutch quilting. A graduate of Bennington College ('22), Salli works at the intersection of textile, tattoo, and narrative to explore identity, diaspora, and transformation. Their practice is rooted in a punk sensibility and DIY ethos, drawing from both personal experience and inherited histories to create work that is raw, layered, and deeply intentional.