Omar Carreño

Omar Rafael Rodriguez Carreño was born on February 7, 1927 in Porlamar, Nueva Esparta State and died on May 11, 2013 in Caracas. An Architect, Plastic Artist (Painter, Sculptor, Metalsmith), member of the European Academy of Science, Arts and Humanities of Paris and member of the Venezuelan Artistic Group "Los Disidentes" (The Dissidents). He was the son of the metalsmith Daniel Carreño and Antonia Maria Rodriguez. Since his childhood Carreño was already drawing and making a great friendship with Ramon Vasquez Brito, who was one of his classmates. He said:

 "I began the painting at home and I also discovered at school that I had aptitude for drawing, they always called me to go to the blackboard for painting. I was always competing with Ramon Vasquez Brito. Afterwards, I went to Caracas and it was Dr. Elias Toro who convinced my father to send me to study painting in Paris”.

His first works were abstract and geometric oil paintings followed by collages and transformable relieves controlled by the spectator through a hinge system. Pierre Descargues called it polyptych and Carreño presented it in the Arnaud Gallery of Paris, France. It was the artistic creation rejoicing itself that drives Carreño to the abstractism path since he was in Caracas before going to Paris.

Between 1948 and 1950 he studied in the School of Plastic and Applied Arts until that same year when Omar Carreño travelled to Paris, where he established his residence, he attached to the abstractionist tendencies of the time and joined the Group "Los Disidentes"(The Dissidents) . In 1952 Carreño made contact with several artists who live in Paris with a view of creating a movement designed to unify all disciplines inside of a humanist dynamic open to the future, starting from the artistic disciplines.

In 1955 he returned to Venezuela and settle in Caracas after his last surgery and five years of absence.

Works and contribution

• In 1952 he participated in the First International Art Exhibition of Abstract Art, in the Gallery "Cuatro Muros" of Caracas.
• In 1953 he made the Sculptures­ Poems and his first Oeil de Boeuf, some of them transformable.
• In the same year Carreño published from his room of the hospital the article: Idées de l'Artist (Ideas of the Artist, bulletin magazine CIMAISE, N 4/5, July 1953) wherein he expressed his "Global interest for everything that take shape and get transformed in our century".
• In 1956 he convenes the first reunions for the formation of the Expansionist Movement, which thrive the next year, and write "Limite y Expansion del Espacio" (Limit and Expansion of the Space. Integral, 4, Caracas, June 1956)
• In 1957 he completed the interior and exterior murals of the Dental Faculty in the Central University of Venezuela; he was the only artist to be given an entire building by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva.
• In the same year he created a Monumental­ Mobile Sculpture, a pioneer in the country (Nowadays Disappeared) for a neighbourhood in Pariata, Vargas State, which a new version stands in the public state of Caracas.
• At the end of 1966, he returned to Venezuela joining the teachers of Plastic Arts School Cristobal Rojas (1967–­1979) he start to promote his ideas about expansionism in conferences and expositions.
• In 1966 found in Caracas the Expansionist group.
• He participated in 1972 in the Biennale of Venice, Italy.
• In 1983 the MBA organized an anthological exhibition with 96 of his works made from 1953.

Awards

• In 1950 he won the Award for the students of Plastic Arts in the 11th Official Hall.
• "Puebla de Bolivar" Award in the 18th Official Hall, 1967.
• "Energia Electrica" Award in the 6th D'Empaire Hall, 1959.
• National Award of Plastic Arts in Caracas, 1972.
• Arturo Michelena Award in the 31th Arturo Michelena Hall, 1973.

The Regional Government of Nueva Esparta State, inaugurated in his honour the Arts Centre Omar Carreño in La Asuncion, State of Nueva Esparta, place where some of his works are exhibited.