Daniel Mena was born in 1980 in Santiago, Chile, second child in a family of five brothers. After living a few years in the north of Chile, he moves with his family to Palo Alto, California. Contact with american culture at such an early age will be of vital importance in his work as an artist in the years to come.
In 1986, Daniel is back in Chile. At age nine he starts taking lessons with artist Karl Müller, who tought him how to paint in the tradition of the great masters. Later on he continues his artistic education with chilean artist Andrés Baldwin.
During 1999 - 2002 he attends Santiago's best known art school (Catholic University), finishing among the best in his class. In March 2003 he shows his tesis project in the group exhibition "Umbrales" in the university's art gallery. The same year he obtains the "Artistas del Siglo XXI" prize and wins the "Cilindro como Soporte" art competition, curated by Francisco Brugnoli (curator of Santiago's Contemporary Art Museum).
In April 2004 he is announced as one of the winners of the "SoHo-Chelsea International Art Competition", juried by Susan Cross, associate curator, Guggenheim Museum, New York City. In January 2006 he shows "Buena Presencia" a solo exhibit in one of Santiago's finest art galleries. During May 2006, he exhibits “The Neopop Dialogues”, a survey of his work, at the National Historic & Military Museum Contemporary Art Gallery in Santiago.
His most recent exhibitions include "Daniel Mena: Portrait of the artist as" at the Embassy of Chile in Washington DC, "International Pop: strangely familiar popular culture" at Knew Gallery Washington DC, and "Twenty-First Century Ibero-American Art" curated by Jack Rasmussen, at The Katzen Arts Center Washington DC.
Daniel Mena's paintings simulate the appearance of an industrial reproduction technique (silkscreen), by means of a manual technique (painting). In this way painting again takes on its false character, once more becoming surface and placing itself in a relation of subordination to the image. Under this operation of make-up, common images pertaining both to personal and global iconography are represented, simulating the appeal of the human figure and its related accessories as represented in the mass media. What matters in the end is no longer the referential subject, but the way in which it reflects a visual stereotype - in itself a substitute for pop icons - modeled according to the public fantasy of fame and stardom.
His work puts in evidence the visual excesses of modern life, as fashion, consumerism and eroticism intersect. Daniel Mena's paintings immortalize the “cool” nostalgic appearance of old video clips and vintage wallpaper, evoking a world rich in multicultural icons delivered through the globalized media, where HBO, MTV and VH1 cultures rule. Newspapers, magazine ads, television and the internet, nourish the fascinating iconographic universe of this neo-pop artist, thus articulating, ironic visual commentaries about consumer culture, and elaborating on the stylization of people and objects through design trends.
Mena currently lives and works in Santiago, Chile.