Quagmire, 2011. Single channel video projection, projected onto an 8-feet diameter platform (wood, plaster and paint). Duration: Continuous loop. Mud eruption captured at Námafjall, Iceland.

In 2007, a mini-submarine carrying Artur Chilingarov, a Russian parliamentarian and veteran explorer, descended into the ice-covered sea at the North Pole, extended its robotic arm, and planted a Russian flag on the sea floor. Méndez’s El Norte is a critique on the prevailing ‘15th century colonial attitude’ and in particular, its relation to the current geopolitics of the North Pole.

Recurrence Relation # 2 is a single channel video projection, where the tenuous image of a figure emerges from the distant horizon. The figure walks towards the viewer, even at times looks straight onto the viewer, then continues beyond the viewer. The landscape of the barren high arctic sits still as the figure emerges again, to repeat the same migrating pathway, endlessly. Filmed in Moffen Island, International Territory of Svalbard, an archipelago near the north pole (80°N, 14.5°E), 2010. Duration: 3 minutes, 35 seconds.

Single channel video. Captured in 16mm film throughout Iceland, Svalbard Archipelago, Atacama Desert in Chile, and in White Sands, United States. Sound by composer Ben Frost, Iceland. Duration: 9 mins. 38 secs. Continuous loop. Nothing Further Happens is a collection of land- and seascapes filmed in the past 5 years in Iceland, Svalbard archipelago in the high arctic, the salt flats in the desert of Atacama in Chile, and White Sands in New Mexico, U.S. The subject is the distant horizon line and the frame locates the ‘line’ exactly half way, creating a symmetrical composition. This equivalence allows for the viewer to experience the sensation of being surrounded only by vast horizons in a complete surrender to spatial infinity.

At Any Given Moment, Grass 2 with Burnt Wood, 2010. Video art installation consisting of video projection (22 × 19ft), burnt wood, and sound (by Drew Schnurr).

The At Any Given Moment series explores issues of perception, specifically our relationship to technologically mediated nature. In At Any Given Moment, Grass 2, the repetitive rhythm, tight cropping, and large-scale image emphasize the work’s particular organizational logic in time and space.

At Any Given Moment, Fall 1 with Volcanic Rock is an architectural scale video art installation consisting of video projection, sound, and 4 tons of Volcanic Rock. Duration: Continuous loop. Size: Variable; site specific. Shown above at ‘Energy’, group exhibition at the Alyce Williamson Gallery. Size: 21ft 8 in x 18 ft. Duration: 9 minutes.

At Any Given Moment, Fall 2 is an architectural scale video art installation consisting of video projection, 4 tons of lava rocks, gravel and sand, and sound. Duration: Continuous loop. Size: Variable; site specific.

At Any Given Moment, River 1 is an architectural scale video art installation consisting of video projection and sound. Duration: Continuous loop. Size: Variable; site specific.

At Any Given Moment, River 2 is an architectural scale video art installation consisting of video projection and sound. Duration: Continuous loop. Size: Variable; site specific.

At Any Given Moment, Grass 1, is one in a series of video art installations filmed in Iceland between 2006 and 2008. The At Any Given Moment series explores issues of perception, specifically our relationship to technologically mediated nature. In At Any Given Moment, Grass 1, the repetitive rhythm, tight cropping, and large-scale image emphasize the work’s particular organizational logic in time and space.

Never Happened Again is an ongoing series of single-channel video projection works shot with a Bolex Reflex 16mm film camera in Iceland and Los Angeles. Méndez’s interests in issues of perception expand into the perception of light by the apparatus— in this case, her 54-year old hand-cranked Bolex—and that of the film stock. Through this mechanism ‘chance’ is introduced into the making of the image, resulting in radiant chroma floods intensified by the irregular flickering of the frames, set against a subject matter of a mundane nature—a grass field in a park, an urban Eucalyptus tree, a field of cotton flowers where sheep grace.

Never Happened Again is an ongoing series of single-channel video projection works shot with a Bolex Reflex 16mm film camera in Iceland and Los Angeles. Méndez’s interests in issues of perception expand into the perception of light by the apparatus— in this case, her 54-year old hand-cranked Bolex—and that of the film stock. Through this mechanism ‘chance’ is introduced into the making of the image, resulting in radiant chroma floods intensified by the irregular flickering of the frames, set against a subject matter of a mundane nature—a grass field in a park, an urban Eucalyptus tree, a field of cotton flowers where sheep grace, or a glacier.

Never Happened Again is an ongoing series of single-channel video projection works shot with a Bolex Reflex 16mm film camera in Iceland and Los Angeles. Méndez’s interests in issues of perception expand into the perception of light by the apparatus— in this case, her 54-year old hand-cranked Bolex—and that of the film stock. Through this mechanism ‘chance’ is introduced into the making of the image, resulting in radiant chroma floods intensified by the irregular flickering of the frames, set against a subject matter of a mundane nature—a grass field in a park, an urban Eucalyptus tree, a field of cotton flowers where sheep grace.

Never Happened Again is an ongoing series of single-channel video projection works shot with a Bolex Reflex 16mm film camera in Iceland and Los Angeles. Méndez’s interests in issues of perception expand into the perception of light by the apparatus— in this case, her 54-year old hand-cranked Bolex—and that of the film stock. Through this mechanism ‘chance’ is introduced into the making of the image, resulting in radiant chroma floods intensified by the irregular flickering of the frames, set against a subject matter of a mundane nature—a grass field in a park, an urban Eucalyptus tree, a field of cotton flowers where sheep grace.

New photographic series where I visit ‘natural landscape tourist sites,’ find the most photographed point of view of the site, and hastily snap a 360° view of the landscape. Jump back in my car and drive to the next natural landscape tourist location. My interest in this series is to explore how cultures express themselves through the style of nature they produce at a given era.

Recurrence Relation # 1 is a video art installation, where the tenuous image of a male figure emerges from a dense fog. He walks towards the viewer, even at times looks straight onto the viewer, then continues beyond the viewer. The landscape of the barren tundra sits still as birds fly by or land. Seconds later, the figure emerges again, to repeat the same pathway, endlessly.

Weatherscapes is an artwork series exploring the relationship of the weather and the landscape as it relates to human scale. Weather­—fog, lightning, rain, ice, clouds—inhabits the otherwise vast abstract space between the body and the distant horizon. Weatherscapes capture a more compact environment, one that the body can engage with physically, creating a continuous and intimate ensemble between the body, the weather and the landscape.

Here Over There is a photographic series of straight-on portraits of hotel beds that began on the island of Chiloe, Chile, on December 23, 2002 and continues to this date. Working in a documentary style, so neutral in emotional values that is almost anthropological, I photograph the beds I sleep on during my travels with consistent parameters—the image is taken as soon as I awake, on the first morning of my stay, with the available light, with a hand held camera, and from the same point of view—my height.

There Is No There, 2009. Triptych. Each panel: 20h x 13.33w. Archival inkjet print, plexiglass, white silkscreen ink. There Is No There, a visual and verbal loop, structured as a triptych to emphasize the organizational logic of both the photograph and of language. The work attempts to affirm the existence of something and, at the same time, to negate its position in time and space. It focuses on issues of ambiguity and indetermination.

About to Happenconsists of isolated single still frames of her 16mm film shoot throughout Iceland. In Dettifoss 001, Méndez captures an instant of Europe’s largest waterfall—500 cubic metres per second, and in Brekka 001, a moment of giant rye grass being forcefully blown by the wind.

Rebeca Méndez was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission to create an art installation for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk warehouse in Santa Fe Springs, Los Angeles County, CA. Reviewed by The Los Angeles Times

Thom Mayne and his firm Morphosis designed a 353,000 sq. ft. student recreation center on the campus at the University of Cincinnati, which opened on May, 2006. Rebeca Méndez was commissioned to create six murals measuring 9 by 20 feet each to be suspended from the ceiling at the convenience store of the Rec Center…

Thom Mayne and his firm Morphosis designed a 353,000 sq. ft. student recreation center on the campus at the University of Cincinnati, which opened on May, 2006. Rebeca Méndez was commissioned to create a public art installation on four cone-like structures, two of them reaching over 50 feet high and piercing through the roof….

’Méndez, in her Homeland series, explores a sense of ambivalence—while her panoramic images allude to the sublime in nature, they simultaneously reveal their synthetic process of construction. Incorporated in each landscape is a short line of text capturing a sensation, memory, or experience triggered by the landscape, including references to sustenance—for example, the words ‘till the last tree’ over an image of cows grazing.