The journalist Miriam Delgado interviews the Venezuelan engraver Gladys Meneses. During the course of the conversation, Meneses talks about an important change in her approach to her art. She explains that she decided to replace paper with other support materials, and has been working with stainless steel and melamine, which have allowed her to produce pieces that border on the three-dimensional. The artist also mentions her work with stained glass windows at the Güigüe monastery in the Venezuelan state of Carabobo. During the interview, Delgado refers to other topics, such as Meneses’ interest in creating an art school in Tucupita, and the plan to create a TAG (Taller de Artes Gráficas) that would function at a national level.  

When the journalist Miriam Delgado interviewed Gladys Meneses (1938?2014), she mentioned the engraver’s new approach to her work, which led Meneses to experiment with three-dimensional pieces. At the time of this interview, Meneses had been working on three-dimensional projects, including the mural for the Naricual mines (laminated wood and engraved stainless steel, 444 x 290 cm., 1974), which has been at the Museo de Bellas Artes (Caracas) since 1986. Meneses had also experimented with these materials in the works she exhibited at the Bienal de São Paulo (1989), and she discusses the process with Delgado. She explains that she felt a need to change the scale of her works; no longer wanting to communicate within the intimate environment afforded by works on paper, she now wants to address the viewer from the vantage point of sculptural space. She understands that a print cannot be dissociated from its origins—printing and paper. It could be said that therein lies the strength (and apparent weakness) of graphic works, as represented by the ability to reproduce an image. Thanks to that characteristic, a print is a medium that reaches a mass audience, but cannot be a unique work of art. This latter feature is what drives many engravers to experiment with plates (whether made of metal or wood) and transcend the two-dimensional realm to produce three-dimensional works.     

To read a review of Meneses’ work, see by F. Valladares “Gladys Meneses, Iván Torres” [doc. no. 1155685].