Mari Menez is a Venezuelan artist with Wayuu and African roots. She has a degree in Arts with experience in museum management and university teaching. She currently resides in Colombia, where she develops her visual work, in which art and memory are combined, rooted in the world of her childhood, whose family scene was set by poultry, particularly roosters and hens, a domestic species from which she takes as predominant symbol the image of the rooster.
This bird, in the work of Mari Menez, personifies and transmits her memories, her nostalgia, in which the figure of her father, a cockfighting enthusiast, who suffered from Alzheimer’s for 14 years, plays a significant role. Interestingly, her paintings of roosters served as a stimulus for her father to recover his memories over the course of a year, thus acting her artistic creation as art therapy.
Later, she develops the theme of sexuality based on the image of this bird, which usually boasts its elegance and dominance, its masculinity, even though some are born with female plumage. Sexually, roosters and hens attracted each other by the size and color of their crests, which Mari Menez represents in an accentuated way in her compositions, in which the quality of the image of the different types of roosters is made with such sharpness and definition which leads us to associate her style with hyperrealism, although from where the figures of these birds are projected they are usually monochrome backgrounds, in some cases planes with uniform color, and in others, with gestural brushstrokes.
Generally, her roosters appear in a very close-up or foreshortened, which allows us to appreciate in detail the configuration of their physiognomies, particularly the intensity of the crest color and the lobes that hang on both sides of the beak.
José Gregorio Noroño
Artworks
CV
2020
→ “Gallus memories”. Galería Zenatrium, Zipaquirá, Cundinamarca. Colombia.
2020-2021
→ “Gallus memories” La Távola Santa. Centro cultural, Cundinamarca. Colombia.
2003
→ “Otra mirada en la misma historia”. Casa de la Capitulación, Maracaibo. Venezuela.
2021
→ “Binacional La Ruta del Quetzal”. San Cristóbal Verapaz. Guatemala.
→ “2do festival jóvenes por la paz”. Alianza de las Américas, New York. EEUU.
→ “VII Encuentro ahí están pintadas”. Museo de arte Moderno de Bucaramanga. Colombia.
→ “XI Salón de pintura, escultura y fotografía de Tenjo”. Centro Cultural Nhora Matallana y Museo Templo colonial, Cundinamarca. Colombia.
→ “Apuntes para un bestiario. Galería 12:00, San Felipe, Bogotá. Colombia.
→ “El color de la esperanza”. Baupres Gallery, Mazatlán. México
→ “1era Bienal Internacional de arte virtual”. Universidad de Panamá. Panamá.
2020
→ “Arte y salud mental, modalidad gigantografía”. Hospital Sainte-Anne, París. Francia.
→ “3era Feria de arte figurativo y representacional”. Melaka, Galería Bogotá. Colombia.
→ “Primer Salón virtual Exposición Binacional, Simbiosis, arte en frontera, pandemia. Artistas visuales de Táchira.” Cúcuta. Colombia
→ “Exposición internacional de arte Poética del color”. Galería Víctor Humareda Gallegos, Puno. Perú.
→ “La locura del plástico”. Centro cultural Baupres Gallery. Mazatlán. México.
→ Exposición internacional. ”Quarantine Exhibition”. TCC McKeon Center for Creativity. Tulsa-USA.
→ “Diálogos Cruzados”. Galería Múltiple, Bogotá. Colombia.
2019
→ “Salón de artes visuales ciudad de Cúcuta”. Museo de la memoria, Cúcuta. Colombia.
2016
→ “Homenaje a la mujer cajiqueña”. Instituto Municipal de Cultura y Turismo, Cajicá. Colombia.
2013
→ “Expositor en el festival of the arts”. Arts Council Oklahoma City. USA.
2004
→ “Reverencias, homenaje al artista plástico Armando Reverón”. Museo Histórico General Rafael Urdaneta, Maracaibo. Venezuela.
1996
→ “Otra visión”. Museo Estudio de Arte, Maracaibo. Venezuela.
2021
→ Premio internacional Princesa Luyari, a la labor artística y cultural. Fundación para la promoción artística y cultural Rinconesarte internacional, Tolima. Colombia.
→ Reconocimiento especial por su destacada participación en la exposición internacional bipartita entre el International Museum Rinconesarte Foundation de Colombia y el VR Cambass, Tolima. Colombia.
2020
→ Mención de honor en la Exposición Renacer. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Huila. Colombia.
2011
→ Mención de honor en la XII Exposición de artes plásticas. Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá. Colombia.