Carmen Salvador Velez

Artist, illustrator and Architect, with a long and distinguished career in the disciplines of drawing, painting and illustration.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 17, 1953, after her parents moved from Spain at the onset of that country’s Civil War. Engineers and Architects like Fernando and Amos Salvador Rodrigañez, from the Rioja region, are an integral part of her ancestry.

Early years

Carmen grew up surrounded by books, nature and animals, as well as pencil-made architectural plans, reproductions of Picasso, Dalí and Miró, Calder mobiles, fabrics, embroidery, freshly cut dresses, sewing and needle threading of grandmothers, in addition to her mother's book binding works.

In 1988 Carmen graduated as an Architect from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the Central University of Venezuela. Before, during and after her graduation, she completed numerous courses and seminars associated with her artistic interests. In 1974, Carmen studied analytical drawing with Professor Charles Ventrillón Hörber, who had immediately realized her outstanding drawing skills. Similarly, she studied photography at the Simón Bolívar University in 1975, and in the ensuing years, participated in several educational programmes at the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas. In 1984, her art-driven curiosity led her to study free sculpture and painting at workshops with maestro Víctor Valera at the Cristóbal Rojas School of Visual Arts, in Caracas. In 1987 Carmen won the Third Prize in Painting at the Picasso Salon, with a large format, figurative work in oil on canvas. In 1988, at the II National Salon of Fedecámaras (the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce), she earned a scholarship at the Federico Brandt Art Institute, where she studied techniques and materials during workshops with one of her teachers, Manuel Espinoza; in 1989, on plastic language, with Juan Pedro Posani; and on painting, with Adrián Pujols, Octavio Russo and...

Carmen's work has been shown in Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Havana, Vienna, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm as well as in several cities of Venezuela. Below, some examples of her participation in collective and individual exhibits in painting and illustration.

Collective (painting)

XV Annual Student Hall, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, UCV, Caracas, 1978.
XVI Annual Student Hall, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, UCV, Caracas, 1979.
XLII Arturo Michelena Hall, Ateneo de Valencia, Valencia, Venezuela, 1984.
I Picasso Hall, Institute of Ibero-American Cooperation, Caracas, 1987.
II National Hall of Fedecámaras, Caracas, 1988.
Three Contemporary Versions, Tito Salas Gallery, Caracas, 1989.
Conac Hall of the American Meeting Warm Spaces, Athenaeum of Caracas, traveling exhibition of the Museum of Fine Arts of Caracas, 1990.
National Biennial of Plastic Arts, Corpoandes Hall, Mérida Museum, Mérida, Venezuela, 1990.
National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, December 1990.
I National Biennial of Plastic Arts of Puerto La Cruz, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art of Puerto La Cruz, Anzoátegui State, August 1991.
XVI Art Salon of Aragua, Maracay Art Museum, 1991.
Art for Life, Euroamericana Gallery, Caracas, 1991.
Museum of Fine Arts...