Venezuelan painter, naturalised French, born in 1930 in Biscucuy (Venezuela), died in 2000 in Paris.
Life
Guided at first by the painter Braulio Salazar, Mauro Mejíaz trained at the Arturo Michelena School of Fine Arts in Valencia (Venezuela), where he first exhibited in 1951, at the Ateneo. Awarded a prize at the Arturo Michelena Salon in 1952, he was appointed professor of sculpture and ceramics in 1955. Under the influence of David Alfaro Siqueiros, he then practised Social Realist painting and in 1961 produced a large mural in Barcelona (Venezuela).
In 1964 he settled in France, where he lived until his death. From 1965 he took part in the Latin American Salon at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, then in the Salon de Mai in 1967. He exhibited with Roberto Matta from 1967 and showed his work in Paris, Bonn, Hamburg, Vienna and Barcelona. He received the Arturo Michelena Prize in 1981.
The work
Having passed through Social Realism, Impressionism, Cubism and Expressionism, Mejíaz found his language between 1970 and 1975: oil pigments applied with rag and solvent, combined with frottage, giving rise to visionary, almost interplanetary landscapes. Matta’s influence is apparent.
The gallery showed him in its exhibitions devoted to Latin American art, in 2022 (14 October to 19 November) and in 2025 (“A Journey through Latin America”, 18 April to 31 May), alongside Jorge Camacho, Joaquín Ferrer, Gerardo Chávez, Roberto Álvarez Ríos and Ramón Alejandro.
Exhibitions and collections
- Galerie 3+2, Paris, 1968 and 1970; Galerie Art Visionnaire, Paris, 1982
- Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, and public collections in Spain, Uruguay, North Macedonia, Sweden and Venezuela