MERY GODIGNA COLLET

REVIEW - The Magazine 

Extra Virgin Petrus Oil ​

MERY GODIGNA COLLET, a conceptual artists and native of Venezuelan has participated in 24 solo and 34 group exhibitions around the world. Her work is part of the permanent collections at institutions such as: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia, Maracaibo; Venezuela, Latin American Art Museum, Miami, FL., Galleria D’Arte Moderno di Cento, Bologna, IT Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, France, Petroleum Museum, Midland, TX. Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, UT Austin, TX  and MexicArte Museum, Austin TX. Her artistic roots reach back to the classical school of Madrid’s Real Academia de San Fernando in the early 70’s. 

In 1986, after graduating from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Architecture, Collet traveled to Egypt to investigate ancient paper making techniques. She went on to study paper elaboration and printing at the Museo Contemporaneo Sofia Imber. Overtime Collet’s attitudes and approach to the visual arts evolved. Her interest in ecological concerns intensified making the "concept" the "nuclei" of her work. 

Mery Godigna Collet's artistic exploration is based on four specific research projects involving new techniques that reveal "concepts" translated through "matter; " Matter, Time, and Space (Materia, Tiempo, y Espacio) 1997, Done with Fibers (Hecho con Fibra) 2003, Metallic Light  (La Luz Metalica) 2006, Extra Virgin Petrus Oil,  2008-2015.

In this exhibition, Extra Virgin Petrus Oil ,Collet uses Crude Oil and it bi-products combined with pigment and vegetable fibers as her creative media. She applies this to multiple layers of vinyl and invokes the process of morphogenesis allowing the material to create the image by using “the subject to paint the subject”. She then stabilizes the process, resulting in a rich luminous multi-layering of materials resembling “underground landscapes”. Collet’s fusion of materials emphasizes the interaction between mining and agriculture.