Gustavo Méndez-Lizka

Gustavo Mendez-Liska (Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela, 1968) is a painter and sculptor who has been based in Vienna since 1991. Trained at the Instituto Federico Brandt, in Caracas, and subsequently at the School of Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, he develops an artistic practice situated between geometric abstraction, South American concrete art and approaches close to arte povera.

His work explores relationships between structure, space, matter and perception, building objects and compositions that investigate the tension between order and instability, geometry and the organic. Through pared-down forms and rigorous constructive systems, he creates works in which abstract language frequently comes close to architecture, landscape and material memory.

Over more than three decades of activity he has presented solo and group exhibitions in Europe and Latin America, notably projects in institutions and galleries in Austria, Portugal, Brazil and Venezuela. His recent solo exhibitions include Experiências Tectónicas and As Experiências da Tectónica at the Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência, in Lisbon, Heritage, in Krems an der Donau, and A Fronteira da Inquietude, presented at Galeria São Mamede, in Lisbon.

He has also taken part in international fairs, residencies and curatorial projects, maintaining a regular presence in spaces connected to contemporary art and abstract experimentation, in particular through his continued collaboration with galleries and institutions in Vienna and Lisbon.

His artistic practice unfolds as a continuous investigation into systems of visual construction, formal balance and material transformation, proposing readings in which geometry, object and space remain in permanent negotiation.