Biography
Jason Mena is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, video, and photography. He 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, such as 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.
In 2010, he founded and directed La Embajada, a prominent artist-run space based in Santa María la Ribera, Mexico City, which operated for over a decade. 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 a two-time AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship nominee and a recipient of a 2006 International Association of Art Critics Award, Lexus Grant for the Arts and The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. His work has been featured in publications and catalogues produced by respected institutions, notably the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes de México, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, The New Yorker, Museum of Latin American Art, Yale School of Architecture, Queens Museum, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
His work has been shown at leading venues, among them the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Unicorn Centre for Art, Palais de Tokyo, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo de Costa Rica, 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, Museu Mineiro, Karachi Biennale, and The San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial. His works are held in public and private collections in the United States, Mexico, and Europe, including the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Puerto Rico, the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico, and Bombas Gens Centre d’Art, Spain.