(Valencia, Venezuela, 1939)

Kinetic artist  who studied at the Arturo Michelena School of Plastic Arts, Venezuela. In the 1960s, he ventured into scenography, while developing a series of informalist and gestural works. In 1968 he moved to Paris and worked in Carlos Cruz-Diez's studio for two years, which led him to rethink his artistic praxis. 

Back to Venezuela in 1973, Mérida begins a process of configuring his work in which he includes the concepts of time and space as motifs, thus moving away from his previous plastic style. Through his pieces —experimenting with the variations of matter such as pigments, sand, coal dust, wood particles, painted metal, etc., contained in his monochromatic pieces— the artist avoids proposing a setted and unique perspective. His oeuvre, always mobile, and of many shapes, sizes and colors, are made up of square or circular boxes protected by a glass plate, which constantly rotate, either by the action of a motor or by the intervention of the spectator, where movement generates an unpredictable new monochrome image. The organic matter is invested creating forms renewed to infinity. Thus, Mérida uses the potentialities of chance to create a work in perpetual transformation. 

Manuel Mérida currently lives and works in Paris.