Hermann Mejía | |
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Born |
Caracas, Venezuela |
April 25, 1973
Nationality | Venezuelan-American |
Area(s) | Artist |
http://www.hermannmejia.com |
Hermann Mejía (born 1973) is a New York artist with Venezuelan roots. He is a painter and sculptor who has been named by The Huffington Post as "one of 15 famous Venezuelan artists to know"
Hermann Mejía started drawing at a very young age. His explorations and his virtuoso drawing abilities took him to study illustration and painting, and to the development of expression and character creation. He started collecting comics at age 13, and received his first artist's commission at 15, painting promotional graffiti for musical acts in Caracas. He studied at the Caracas Design Institute (Instituto de Diseño de Caracas). After graduating, he started his career in the fine arts with numerous exhibitions in his native Venezuela, both collective and solo. Growing recognition as a vanguard artist landed him the commission to design a series of Venezuelan postage stamps commemorating Pope John Paul II in 1996.
Upon having won the first prize in a sequential art contest, Mejia was awarded a trip to New York City, where he met artist George Pratt, who had been one of the Judges of the contest. Pratt took Mejía to the offices of DC Comics, where Mejía was offered a job almost instantly.
Through DC, Mejía met Charlie Kochman, Publishing Editor for both DC and MAD Magazine (which was by then a publication of DC Comics), and received a first assignment for the April 1997 issue.
Mejía worked for the New York-based Mad Magazine while still living in Venezuela during the next two years. In 1999 Mejía moved to the United States. He received a "Best in Magazine Feature" Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in 2003.