María Elina Méndez, born in Buenos Aires in 1975, graduated in Image and Sound Design from the University of Buenos Aires. She supplemented her studies with various projects and workshops focusing on photography, plastic arts, set design, and illustration. For four years, she was part of the scenography workshop at the General San Martín Theater until she made the decision to fully dedicate herself to drawing, painting, and illustrating.

Since 2011, Méndez has been associated with Galería Mar Dulce, where she showcased various individual exhibitions. Her illustrations have been published in children's books in Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Spain, France, and Portugal. From early 2012 to 2018, she contributed to the ADN culture supplement for the newspaper La Nación.

Her work has earned international recognition: she was selected for the inaugural edition of Latin American Illustration and subsequently for the V, VIII, and XIII editions of Iberoamérica Ilustra, the Ibero-American Illustration Catalog by Grupo SM, and the Guadalajara International Book Fair. In 2023, she was chosen for the international illustrators' exhibition at the Bologna Children's Bookfair in Bologna, Italy, an opportunity made possible with the support of the Argentine Foreign Ministry.