El Salón Ejecutivo
A Solo Exhibition by Hermann Mejia
July 9th - August 1st, 2021
El Salón Ejecutivo
Established Gallery is proud to present El Salón Ejecutivo by Hermann Mejia. We will be holding an opening reception on July 9th from 7 - 9 pm. Established gallery is open by appointment Sunday thru Friday with public hours from 12pm – 6pm on Saturdays. We take the safety of our guests very seriously, masks are required at all times when inside the gallery.
"In the eighties in Venezuela, I used to accompany my dad on 9-hour road trips to visit our family in Maracaibo. Entering the Zulia State, We used to stop to eat arepas at a gas station that offered, apart from the outdoor dining room, an "Executive" or VIP room, whose difference was that it was closed and dark, with air conditioning and decorated with amateurish oil paintings of all the presidents, heroes of the country and Venezuelan leaders. Probably the concept was to bathe in importance and solemnity a rural and frozen room in the middle of nowhere and inadvertently created a house of horror with monstrous portraits that became a fascination in me. The image of the leader, the powerful, the hero is omnipresent, especially in underdeveloped countries. Every street or avenue, every wall or billboard is engulfed with portraits of electoral candidates, saints, and religious leaders. This exhibition is an exploration of the leader’s images and the boredom and attraction that they generate in me. For this show, I imagine being hired then to update the new executive dining room."
About the artist
Hermann Mejía (1973) is an American visual artist with Latin American roots, having been born in Caracas. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, where he has had his studio for the last couple of decades. He was recently featured by the Huffington Post, in a piece published to coincide with the date of Simon Bolivar’s birthday, as one of 15 famous Venezuelan artists its readers “should know about”.
His first involvement as an art creator was during adolescence, through the street art movement, which led to distinctive tags and murals of his decorating street corners and main thoroughfares in Caracas for many years. He subsequently received formal training and a graphic design and illustration degree at the prestigious Instituto de Diseño de Caracas (Caracas Design Institute, (1991-1995)
Starting in 1995, he began exploring fine arts as a vehicle for more personal artistic expression, which resulted in artworks that have been shown in many art exhibitions, both collective ones and solo shows, initially in Venezuela and later in several other countries. At the same time, he has worked as an on-demand illustrator for written media and for many publishers.