Victorino Mercado

Victorino Mercado is an emerging Bolivian artist from Vinto, a small city located in the lower valley of Cochabamba. He developed an interest in the plastic arts at an early age, influenced in part by the wood carved toys that his father made for him and his siblings. In 2012, he entered the Superior Institute for Plastic Arts Raul G. Prada, where he developed a keen interest in watercolor, greatly influenced by his professor and mentor, the laureate Bolivian watercolorist, José Rodríguez Sánchez. 

Victorino Mercado has developed through watercolor his unique pictorial language, not only employing watercolor as a technique, but using the effects unique to watercolor as a source of inspiration. In some cases, he uses other media to create watercolor like effects. Most importantly, he manages to exploit the fluidity of watercolor to create aethereal, sometimes ghostly atmospheres, while exploring a diversity of themes that evoke other times: vintage objects, abandoned Andean villages or interiors filled with vintage décor. 

He started exhibiting his works in 2015, and since then, has maintained a continued presence at collective and individual exhibitions in halls and galleries across Bolivia. He has also presented his works at international watercolor exhibitions in Ecuador, Italy, Kosovo, and Georgia.