Mercedes Elena Gonzalez, Large Abstract Latin American Painting Venezuelan Mercedez Elena Gonzalez, 1999

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Mercedes Elena González, (Venezuelan, 1952-), Neurohilados Large abstract with calligraphy Acrylic on canvas, Hand signed Dated 1999 verso Dimensions 54" … Read more Mercedes Elena González, (Venezuelan, 1952-), Neurohilados Large abstract with calligraphy Acrylic on canvas, Hand signed Dated 1999 verso Dimensions 54" h x 80 3/4" w (including frame) Provenance: From an Argentine estate Mercedes Elena González is an artist from Caracas, Venezuela. She has worked on various multimedia art pieces that incorporate lines, shapes, and colors to showcase modern abstraction. Mercedes Elena González was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1952. In the years 1974 to 1976, she attended a school in her hometown known as Taller Teresa Azara. Following her attendance there, González continued her studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts until 1980. González has been exhibiting her work since 1975, when she was awarded second place of the Premio Plástica Joven. Two years later, in 1977, she had her first solo show of drawings, at the Sala Mendoza in Caracas. González produced a series of drawings whose titles, such as Vulvosa or Mitosis, and abstract forms hint at the biological process of reproduction. In 2001 she presented her series Entretejimiento, whose title is a portmanteau combining the Spanish words for "weave," "interweave," and "entertainment." The sculpture series Neurohilados (2002) touched on aspects of sewing, biology, psychology, medicine, astronomy, and geography. González's works from 2012 to 2014, specifically her abstract paintings and works on paper, reference in clever ways the height of Venezuela's modernism in the 1950s. For instance, in her series Integral (2012), she manipulates the covers of the architecture magazine Integral from September 1950 by adding dark, ominous shapes that distort the geometric harmony that once proclaimed Venezuela as a center of modernism in the Americas. Her acknowledgment of this moment in the history of her country is meant to evoke the sense of disappointment felt by Venezuelans over the failure of the modernist project. The overlay of her forms superimposed over the magazine's modernist design reminds one of artistic genres such as op art and kinetic art, in which Venezuelan artists have also excelled. Among the awards that González has received are the Premio Armando Reverón at the Salón Michelena (2002) and the Gran Premio at the Salón Nacional de Arte Aragua (2001). Her work is included in national and international private collections as well as in museums and institutions, such as the Banco Mercantil and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Caracas and Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation in Miami. In her series, September 1955, González portrays art that was inspired by a Venezuelan magazine called Integral. The name itself is derived from the specific month and year that Integral showcased modern abstraction as a new form of art. González uses her drawing as means to explore the hopefulness that modern abstraction brought to youth during the 1950s, along with the political obstacles that have slowly ruined the countries well-being. She is from the contemporary art generation of Venezuela which includes art luminaries such as Mario Abreu, Milton Becerra, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Alejandro Otero, Jesús Rafael Soto and Oswaldo Vigas. She comes from a generation in which modernism was not popular in Latin America. Her series reflects on her personal realization of what Venezuela has come to be, through the use of abstract art. Her woman centred art was inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe, an artist who also sparked controversy. She lives and works in her native city of Caracas. She has been in numerous shows at the prestigious Henrique Faria Gallery in New York including Folding: Line, Space & Body/ Latin American Women Artists Working Around Abstraction in 2015 along with Ana Mercedes Hoyos, Feliza Bursztyn, Gego, Liliana Porter, Mercedes Pardo, Valerie Brathwaite and more And in the 2018 show, Radical Women Latin American Art, 1960–1985 Brooklyn Museum of Art. An excellent museum show which included Ana Mendieta, Anna Maria Maiolino, Beatriz González, Cecilia Vicuña, Delfina Bernal, Frieda Medín, Graciela Iturbide, Lotty Rosenfeld, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Margot Romer, Marisol, Mercedes Elena Gonzalez, Pola Weiss, Teresa Trujillo, Yeni & Nan and more. See less