german Venegas

Mexican painter, sculptor, draftsman and engraver (La Magdalena Tlatlauquitepec, State of Puebla, 1959). He is a graduate of "La Esmeralda" National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving, belonging to the National Institute of Fine Arts (1977-1982). Before his formal training as a plastic artist, he developed as a carving craftsman. He is widely recognized as one of the most prominent representatives of the generation of artists who, during the eighties, burst onto the national cultural scene with great vigor, whom they described as neo-Mexicanists. Running in parallel with some currents that marked the plastic expression of the eighties of the twentieth century worldwide, such as the German and American neo-expressionists, and the Italian trans-avant-gardes, the generation of Mexican painters to which Germán Venegas belongs was characterized for the avidity towards the avant-garde and also for a certain nostalgic look towards the Mexican. Venegas' work admirably synthesizes both perspectives that, together with his unobjectionable mastery, be it carving of colored high reliefs and sculptures, or drawing, engraving and painting, give it its own character that has earned him international recognition for more. three decades. Thus, the expressionism turned into medium and large-format sizes stands out in his work, the irruption of color in his plastic work and the formal exploration of multiple suggestions in his charcoal or ink drawings, as a question of his own tradition (in so much that he is a culturally and technically trained artist in Mexico), which is finally resolved into a set of his own belonging to universal art. After a long period dedicated to sculpture, Venegas returned to painting, the search for a new starting point led him to the philosophical-religious universe of Buddhism where he found a link between his existence and his art, enriching his work with a new perception of life and death, representing in his paintings and drawings Eastern and Western deities and icons. He presented his first solo exhibition in 1984. He was awarded the acquisition award at the III Meeting of Young Art in 1983. He has been a member of the National System of Art Creators, one of the most notable distinctions granted by the National Council for Culture and the Arts through FONCA on four occasions: 2001, 2004, 2010 and 2014, as well as the scholarship of the Program for the Promotion of Cultural Projects and Co-investments also granted by FONCA in 2000, recently in 2018-19 his work was recognized by the present a solo exhibition at the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, among other distinctions. His work has been exhibited in Mexico and abroad (United States, Japan, Spain, Guatemala, Brazil, Germany, Ecuador, Australia, Cuba, Italy, France, China and England) and is included in such important collections as the Museum of Ponce in Puerto Rico, the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Extremadura and Ibero-American Museum of Contemporary Art in Badajoz, Spain, among others.