The Nevada Museum of Art presents a video installation by artist and designer Rebeca Méndez, recipient of the 2012 Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award.
Méndez’s work investigates the nature of matter through a focus on cycles and systems, specifically the forces and cross-rhythmic tensions that make natural phenomena emerge. This interest stems from her childhood in Mexico City and the Mexican jungle, where she would follow her father in pursuit of Mayan archaeology. Common to both environments is hypercomplexity, multiplicity, and constant change. Méndez’s move to Los Angeles and her expeditions to geologically young Iceland have furthered this impetus.
Says Méndez: “In my work I have always been interested in limits, and I am interested in where those limits are blurred. Always, when those categories are leaking or meshing together they create the grotesque and ambiguous. It is in those areas that I really like operating.”
Born in Mexico City, Méndez earned her BFA and her MFA at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and currently teaches in the University of California, Los Angeles Design Media Arts Department.