Mery Godigna Collet was born in Venezuela and spent her childhood and part of her adolescence in post-war Europe. She grew up with the label of having a nationality from an oil producing country without any physical or psychological connection to it. So in her child’s mind petroleum became a kind of magical source of curiosity. Years later, after having fastidiously studied the impact, the history, the physical characteristics and even poetry concerning this “Minotaur”, she decided to confront it in this last series of works called “Extra Virgin Petrus Oil”. The energy theme became the driving force behind the research she had been carrying out in recent years.
Mery Godigna Collet creates works of art that deal with ecological issues as a serious and fundamental concern facing mankind. The constant use of vegetable fibers and the process used to work them (learned in Egypt) in an almost alchemical way, makes the conversion of this material into something new and sublime.
In her own words: “In my trajectory as an artist there has always been an ecological concern that has driven me to study the origins of materials and the origins of the aspects of the collective subconscious. Petroleum comes from a fundamental origin and is a basic tenet in our subconscious understanding of energy and industrial development.”
For some critics, Mery Godigna’s works reflect the interior landscape of her own being. For others the way she uses materials reminds us of the movement from the late 60’s called “Arte Povera”. They name her style “Arte Povera from the 21st Century”.
If there is a way of characterizing her work as a post modern artist it should be through the search for synthesis. After studying the classical masters such as Raphael and Michelangelo, the modern masters such as Picasso and Pollock or the cultural expressions of different ethnic groups, she proposed synthesis as an all-encompassing plastic language that promotes universality to the meaning of works of art and liberates them from any colloquialisms.
In the series entitled “Extra Virgin Petrus Oil” her work is elaborated with petroleum and its by-products as well as vegetable fiber, specifically from the sugar cane plant used as an allegory to represent the incursions of ethanol into the energy market. The result of this new approach is the interaction between agriculture and mining.
Petroleum, in the 150 years since the start of its commercialization, has become part of our lives and hence part of our collective psyche.
By locating basic material on a subliminal level then transforming it into a topic of reflection and psychosocial analysis, this process promotes a conscious approach to the contemporary use of nature. This is her approach to identifying and symbolizing the moral, psychological and spiritual concerns of man and his relationships with himself, so as to comprehend this relationship within an ecological framework.
The pieces of this new series "Extra Virgin Petrus Oil" are oily surfaces where the spectator finds himself reflected, sometimes as an individual, other times as part of a community, but always submerged in this petroleum dependent world.
Once again the artist shows the interest in the conversion of the materials as part of a cycle of life, dead, and resurrection.
Mery Godigna Collet has exhibited her artwork in Italy, France, Belgium, Spain and Holland. Also in Venezuela, Mexico and Colombia. In New York, Palm Springs and Miami. Her artwork is part of important private as well as museum collections like the Galleria d’Arte Moderno Aroldo Bonzagani, Bologna, Italy, Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, France, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo del Zulia, Venezuela, and Museum of the Americas in Florida.
