Artist: Melvin Toledo

medium: Oil on Panel

Size: 16" x 16"

Melvin Toledo is a Nicaraguan-born artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Raised in a small farming
village in Nicaragua, he has been making art for more than twenty-five years. Since immigrating
to the United States in 2007, Toledo has developed a multidisciplinary practice spanning
portraiture, drawing, painting, and installation. His work explores themes of immigration, labor,
identity, and belonging through projects that center the experiences of immigrant communities in
the American South.
His current practice centers on Stars of America, an ongoing portrait series depicting immigrants
who have made Georgia their home. Through collaborative portraiture and community-engaged
projects, Toledo seeks to honor the lives, contributions, and aspirations of people whose stories
are often absent from mainstream cultural narratives.
His work has been exhibited at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art, MOCA GA, the Quinlan
Visual Arts Center, the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art, Oglethorpe University Museum of Art,
the Hudgens Center for Art & Learning, and the New York Latin American Art Triennial. In
2024, the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art presented Stars of America, his first solo museum
exhibition. Toledo is the recipient of a 2026 Hambidge Center residency, the 2025 First Place
Award at the Portrait Society of Atlanta Juried Exhibition, and the 2022 ArtFields People's
Choice Award for 2D Art.