Biography
Jason Mena is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, video, and photography. His work often delves into issues related to authorship, ownership, economic disparities, and the entanglement of art and commerce.
Mena holds a BFA in Painting from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico and an MFA in Art Practice from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, following graduate studies in Photography at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts Low-Residency Program at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. He has participated in international residency programs, including The Studios at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Hotel Charleroi at B.P.S.22 Musée d'art de la Province de Hainaut, Belgium, and BACO-Batuco Arte Contemporáneo, Chile.
From 2010 to 2020, he founded and directed La Embajada, an artist-run space based in Santa María la Ribera, Mexico City. Conceived as a platform for critical engagement and interdisciplinary exchange, La Embajada fostered collaborations with self-organized, non-profit cultural initiatives and public and private institutions. Its program encompassed residencies, performances, workshops, talks, and exhibitions, engaging a wide network of artists and curators across geographies and disciplines.
Mena is an AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship nominee and a recipient of The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and the Lexus Grant for the Arts. His work has been featured in publications and catalogues produced by leading institutions, including the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes de México, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, The New Yorker, the Museum of Latin American Art, Yale School of Architecture, Queens Museum, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and University of California, Los Angeles.
His work has been shown at prominent venues, including the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Unicorn Centre for Art, Bombas Gens Centre d'Art, Palais de Tokyo, The San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo de Costa Rica, Karachi Biennale, Hessel Museum of Art, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Delaware Art Museum, Wallach Art Gallery, Museo de Arte Moderno de Santo Domingo, Museu das Comunicações de Lisboa, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, and Museu Mineiro, among others.