In his article about 1 x 9: color de la serigrafía, the exhibition of works by Mercedes Pardo (1921–2005) at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas in 1961, Roberto Guevara (1932–98) discusses the evolution of Pardo’s painting as a result of her constant, systematic experimentation. He addresses this facet of Pardo’s work in his general remarks about her forays into a variety of trends that, quite logically, led her to produce the works at this exhibition. The sequence of transitions that Guevara outlines is one of the most useful contributions of this article. Guevara begins by describing Pardo as an artist “whose explorations always lead to a dense and vital process of verification that is subsequently interrupted or directed toward a different line of inquiry.” Though mainly a painter, Pardo also produced prints; she was always scrupulously respectful of the techniques she worked with, never attempting to blur the line between printmaking and painting. On the contrary, she used the flattening effects of silkscreen inks to produce works in which color played a leading role. For the works in this exhibition, she used Formica as the support for nine interchangeable modules that could be assembled into a mural that included all or just some of the pieces.
Regarding Mercedes Pardo’s work, see Ruth Auerbach’s interview “La creación como argumento” [doc. no. 1143060]; the article by Alejandro Otero “Mercedes Pardo: color de la serigrafía” [doc. no. 1143176]; the article by Bélgica Rodríguez “Mercedes Pardo: 1951–2000” [doc. no. 1143027]; and Margarita D’Amico’s interview “Mercedes Pardo: 1 x 9” [doc. no. 1155959].