Mercedes Felgueres

Short Profile

Mercedes Felgueres was born in Mexico City. She studied architecture and did work as architect and interior architect. Since 1994 she lives and works as artist in Germany, since 2002 in Munich. Many individual expositions and participations in group expositions in Germany, Belgium, Italy and Mexico have made her experimental paintings internationally known. Mercedes Felgueres’ paintings tell us about her life between cultures, about her experiences with the new start in Germany. Her work is characterized by a virtuous use of color, which she applies in layers and in the bright and warm tones of her country. The paintings are in fact an invitation: The proposal to walk through an abstract world of images that any spectator can make his own.

Mercedes Felgueres applies different techniques especially in painting. But the term “painting” seems to be too narrow for her works, which are built from many layers and materials. Besides acryl and pigments the artist uses materials like wax, asphalt, graphite, sand and even gold leaf. She also uses paper from the bark of Mexican trees. The strongly structured surfaces serve sometimes as a template for the application of paint. In addition, Mercedes Felgueres incorporates the classic collage material like pieces from newspapers and magazines. In her latest creations she uses in particular own digital photography such as extracts from TV movies. By taking elements of images out of their original context and transferring them into a new context, surprising effects of alienation appear which do not push themselves into the foreground, however: The artist is particularly careful in the integration of different materials and elements into the overall concept of an image. The clear compositional building and the structuring of spaces by straight lines demonstrate the impact of her first profession, the architecture. With subtle oscillating colors she achieves the effect of spatial depth. At the same time the mixed media creates a structured surface and physicalness of the paintings so that the watcher is tempted to touch and where the limits between painting and object start to blur. Some of the black and white dominated works from the earlier years have an almost sculptural character. Particularly Mexican in Felgueres’ art are the warm, bright colors: Even the tones in black, white and grey give off warmth like coming from the underground. Felgueres’ colors have a very special brightness that even sorts from the series of works in muted earth tones. In her recent paintings she puts full emphasis on burning and vibrant colorfulness.

The spectrum of the chosen formats spans from 252 x 158 cm (Los Fragmentos 2004) down to the only 20 x 20 cm large Chiquititos. Art historian Barbara Maria Zöllner