Vicente Gajardo
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José Vicente Gajardo Mardones was born in Tomé, Chile, in 1953. He studied at the University of Concepción, where he graduated in Art, specialising in Sculpture, in 1983. He attended Pedro Millar’s printmaking workshop and studied under Francisco Gazitúa and Enrique Ordóñez.
A sculptor working mainly in granite and steel, he has developed a body of work in which monumental pieces for public space sit alongside small-format sculpture. He has taken part in international sculpture symposia in wood, stone and ice in Chile, Canada, Italy and France, and has carried out urban projects, by commission or competition, in Germany, Argentina, Canada, France, Italy, Morocco, Mexico and Portugal.
He has also taught in Chile, at the Liceo de Tomé, at DUOC UC, where he taught stone carving, and at Universidad Finis Terrae, and was a visiting professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Porto, a city where he lived for four years. In Portugal he produced a group of eleven granite sculptures for Santa Maria da Feira in 2004 and, in 2009, a sculpture in homage to Gabriela Mistral in Lisbon, on the occasion of Chile’s participation in the Ibero-American Summit.
His solo exhibitions include "Vicente Gajardo: esculturas" at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago in 2003, "La imaginación de las piedras", a tribute to the poet Gonzalo Rojas, in 2006-2007, "Cuando el silencio se hace piedra" at the Centro de Extensión UC in 2011, and "Expansión y sosiego" at the Galería de Arte UC in 2025. He took part in Open 2000 at the Lido in Venice and, in 2005, in the exhibition "Escultura em Seteais", organised by Galeria São Mamede in Sintra.
His distinctions include the Marco Bontá Prize of the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts in 2006 and the Altazor Prize for the National Arts, in the Sculpture category, in 2011. His work is held in the collections of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Santiago, and can be found in sculpture parks in Chile, Argentina, Mexico, France, Italy, Germany and Portugal.
