Mexican artist Alejandra Venegas is always in search for intercultural motifs, patterns and symbols, which seem to have a universal meaning. Since her childhood, she has focused her gaze on Asian art, Japanese woodblock prints, Tibetan Buddhist painting, traditional African woodcarving and Egyptian hieroglyphs among many other interests. Her imagery stems from her memories and from closely observing her immediate natural surroundings, being her garden and the mountain close to her house. Her works hover between the figurative and the abstract, the real and the surreal. They have firm roots in Mexico, but they speak of a shared human experience and language.
Typical for Venegas’ artistic practice are her unusual woodcarvings. She hand carves landscape scenes and natural motives from various sorts of wood native to Mexico, after which she colours them with gouache or oil. Uniting the natural, warm tones of the wood with stridently bright shades is a contrast she actively seeks for. Incorporating the natural irregularities of the wood makes it much more than just a panel to paint on and gives the work a definite sculptural character. For Venegas, these works have therefore become a meeting place between painting, sculpture and drawing, but also between nature and culture, the exterior and the interior.
The theme of her pieces, including a great variety of works on paper, is linked to her vision of natural phenomena, the climate and the seasonality of the upper zone of Xochimilco (on the southern outskirts of Mexico City), where she lives and works. Throughout her outings around Xochimilco, Venegas carefully observes the language of the plants and animals that surround her, and as part of these observations, the motifs of her reliefs emerge: seeds that sprout from the earth, plants and flowers, grasshoppers and other animals that surround the area, rain, the sun and their influence on the transformation of the landscape. But she also uses certain ornamental figures such as the spiral that symbolizes expansion and growth. Venegas’ pieces present us with scenes that make us gaze longingly at an idea of nature that is disappearing from urban life, but which, if we look closely, is still there.
Alejandra Venegas (1986, Mexico City) studied Visual and Plastic Arts at La Esmeralda in Mexico City. Recent solo and duo exhibitions include ‘Nubada’ at Proyectos Monclova in Mexico City, ‘Downpour’ with Alex Farrar at Madragoa in Lisbon, ‘Al Cerro Irradiante’ at Kubikulo in Porto, ‘Frequently the woods are pink’ with Paul Beumer at Dürst Britt & Mayhew, ‘Cavar estanques y amontonar montañas’ at Casa Santa Maria de Fundación Casa Wabi.
Recent group exhibitions include ‘Bitácoras’ at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Querétaro in Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico ‘What the moon can tell you has been said by the sun’ at Dürst Britt & Mayhew, ‘Bailando en la oscuridad’ at Karen Huber Gallery in Mexico City, ‘Luego, la forma’ at GAM Gallery in Mexico City, ‘Quality Time’ at Proxyco Gallery in New York, ‘Courage! Near infra red’ at Galeria Rinomina in Paris and ‘Hacer una Isla’ with BWSMX at Ruberta in Los Angeles.
In 2018 Venegas was a resident artist at Casa Wabi in Oaxaca. In 2014 she was selected for the XVI Biennial Rufino Tamayo and in 2016 for the Biennial UNAM of Visual Arts. In 2013 and 2015 she received the FONCA Jóvenes Creadores scholarship. In 2023 she received the Premio Tequila 1800 Colección.
Work by Venegas is held in private and public collections, including the Roche collection in Basel, the AKZO Nobel Art Foundation in Amsterdam and the Tequila 1800 Colección in Guadalajara.
