Alfons Hug is a curator, critic and exhibition organizer.
Chacao is one of the five political and administrative subdivisions of the city of Caracas, Venezuela. The other four are Baruta, El Hatillo, Libertador and Sucre. This legal entity is known as the Caracas Metropolitan District. Chacao is also one of the 21 municipalities that make up the State of Miranda, Venezuela.
Jorge Blanco is a Venezuelan-born American artist, who emigrated to the United States in 1999. He has spent his professional career working as a sculptor, graphic designer and illustrator. His work is in public sites in the United States, South America and Japan. Jorge Blanco is an international artist who has created a distinctive sculptural language over more than thirty years. His expressions on positive lifestyle are invitations to value its simplicity. Blanco has placed 25 public art sculptures in large format across the globe. In addition to public art, Blanco continues his life trajectory with collectible sculptures, his illustrious comic strip "The Castaway," and furniture design. Blanco's technical mastery and flowing geometry has gained him international recognition. His artworks form part of sales in renown auction houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's. In 1971 Blanco graduated as an industrial designer from the prestigious Neumann Institute of Design in Caracas, Venezuela. Under the mentorship of European artists living as expatriates in Caracas, Blanco learned to integrate industrial design with creative processes. His instructors were predominantly artists, such as Gego and Cornelis Zitman, who emphasized artistry in their classrooms. Blanco graduated with a degree in industrial design upon the completion of his first furniture line for children, a thesis project that foregrounded much of his future artwork. Immediately after graduation Blanco began his career as a sculptor, freelance graphic designer and furniture designer. In the late 70s he studied at Rome's Academy of Fine Arts, where his geometric minimalism and interest in expressive and yet delicate lines was further enriched. During his stay in Europe Blanco also uncovered the world of cartoonists. This discovery led Blanco to create the most iconic comic strip in Venezuela's history, "The Castaway." In 1980 "The Castaway" made its debut in El Diario de Caracas. The strip's main character, Castaway, rapidly became a beloved hallmark. Castaway was widely disseminated across the city; it enhanced the city's metro system even. Eight books have been published on Blanco's "The Castaway." For over thirty years, these black and white vignettes have humored viewers, inviting them to contemplate nature and liberty. Through scenes that celebrate philosophical whimsy and human imagination, Blanco narrates heartfelt stories. As "The Castaway" continued to live its success, Blanco illustrated more than twenty storybooks for children and countless educational books. His accomplishments as illustrator led him to El Museo de los Niños, where he served as Creative Director for twenty years. During Blanco's directorship at the Museum, his sculptural work evolved from darker expressions on political ideologies and existentialist absurdity into bright and energetic dialogs supporting newfound values. Love, music, dance, sports and humor motivate Blanco's widely known oeuvre. Throughout his career Blanco has designed purposefully. He seeks to engage his audience without requiring intellectual explanations to be understood. Combining geometric precision and figuration, he communicates effectively and immediately. Like the work of his primary influences, Klee, Miró, Herbin and Calder, Blanco's presents his sculptures in primary colors. Purity of color and form tune the vibrancy of his compositions and resolve his sculptures with a personal kind of sophisticated simplicity. Blanco's largest body of work has been created and fabricated in the United States, where he lives and works since 1999. His esteemed artwork forms part of private collections all over the world and has received multiple accolades.
Darío Escobar is a Guatemalan artist.
Milton Becerra is a Venezuelan artist who pioneered land art in Venezuela in the 1970s.
Británico Antonio Salas Díaz, better known as Tito Salas, was a Venezuelan painter, considered a significant contributor in the development of Venezuelan modern art.
Joel Gerardo Casique was an artist who formed the Escuela Cristóbal Rojas de Caracas. He obtained an art degree at the Art Students League of New York. He has exhibited his work in galleries and museums in Venezuela, the United States, and Aruba; he has also participated in national and international fairs, including the sixteenth and seventeenth Ferias Iberoamericanas de Arte (FIA) in Caracas; the 2007 Latin American Art Fair in Miami; and the 2006 Feria Internacional de Arte de Bogotá (ARTBO) in Bogotá, Colombia.
Enrique Radigales is a contemporary Spanish artist. After studying at Escola Massana de Barcelona and graduating from the Interactive Systems program at UPC University, Barcelona he lives and works in Madrid.
Harry Abend, OFM, is a Polish-born Venezuelan sculptor and architect. Abend is considered to be one of Venezuela's contemporary masters of sculpture. Harry Abend immigrated to Venezuela in 1948 and embarked on his sculpture practice in 1958 under the guidance of Miguel Arroyo while also studying architecture at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. In 1963, at the age of 26, Abend received the National Sculpture Prize of Venezuela for his work "Forma" 1961. In 1964, he participated in a three-month workshop led by British sculptor Kenneth Armitage. In 1976 Abend moved to London where he continued developing his work and exhibited in galleries such as the Roundhouse Gallery and the Hayward Gallery. Around this time Abend began to receive commissions to stage interventions in urban and architectural environments, such as the cement mural on the façade of the Teatro Teresa Carreño, and the interior design of the Sala Plenaria in the east tower of Parque Central, both in Caracas. A selection of his solo shows include Esculturas, Museo de Arte Moderno, Río de Janeiro (1968); three exhibitions at Sala Mendoza, Caracas ; Electrum Gallery, London (1977); Saint James Piccadilly Festival, London (1981); a retrospective at the Museo de Arte Moderno Jesús Soto, Ciudad Bolívar (2002); Museo de Arte Acarigua Araure, Acarigua (2003); Museo Kern Unión Israelita de Caracas (2012); Galería GBG ARTS, Caracas and Henrique Faria, New York. He lives and works in Caracas.
Carlos J. Tirado Yepes, is a Venezuelan artist, painter and sculptor who has developed a very personal and precise work line linked to Neo-pop art. With plenty of personal art exhibitions, Tirado Yepes has participated in numerous collective exhibitions, receiving different awards like III Premio de Escultura del Certamen Aires de Córdoba in 2004 and other recognitions, among them, in the Venezuelan Embassy in DC (2005), and the X Latin Art Festival of Atlanta (2005).
Wladimiro Politano is an Italian sculptor, painter and drawer.
Cristina Merchán was a Venezuelan artist initially trained as a painter, and later became known for her ceramics.
Miguel Ángel Rojas is a Colombian conceptual artist born in Bogotá in 1946. His work includes drawing, painting, photography, installations and video and is often related to the sexuality, the marginal culture, the violence and problems involved with drug consumption and production.
Mercedes Clementina Marta del Carmen Pardo Ponte, known as Mercedes Pardo was a Venezuelan abstract art painter.
Maria Teresa Torras, was Venezuelan-nationalized Spanish artist specializing in sculpture, textiles and metalwork.
Mery Godigna Collet is a Venezuelan artist, writer, philanthropist and environmental advocate living in Austin, Texas.
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.
María Cristina Carbonell, Sculptor from Puerto Rico.
Diana López is a Venezuelan visual artist, cultural manager and activist. She developed her artistic style in the nineties, focusing on participation and exchange with other people in the production of her pieces. In 1994, she became the first woman to receive the Eugenio Mendoza Prize. Her work ranges from photography and video to performance and installations. López was director of culture for the Chacao municipality for seven years. While there, she promoted the creation of the Chacao Theater and the library of Los Palos Grandes in Caracas. She is the director of the Urban Photography Archive in Caracas.
