The Pal Collaborative is a multidisciplinary artist collective whose work explores the intertwined processes of construct, connection, transformation, and searching. Comprised of Elizabeth Velazquez, Nadia Martinez, Leonor Mendoza, and Carlos Mendoza, the collective works across sculpture, painting, installation, and drawing to examine how meaning emerges through making, relation, and change. Together, they create exhibitions and environments that are both materially grounded and conceptually expansive — spaces where individual practices enter into collective conversation.
Leonor Mendoza is a Venezuelan-born artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her BFA from the Federico Brandt Art Institute in Caracas (1993) and completed a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2000). Mendoza has presented solo exhibitions in New York, Florida, and Venezuela, including [TERRITORIES] Con-jugar at Bridge Gallery (NY), ORAL/SENSUAL at Hardcore Art Contemporary Space (FL), and CONTAINED – CONTINENT at Muci Gallery (Caracas). Her international group shows include Caribbean: Together Apart at Fondazione Luciano Benetton (Italy), The (S) Files Biennial at El Museo del Barrio (NY), Bellwether 2010 (Bellevue, WA), 7th Biennial: A.I.R Gallery curated by Connie Butler (A.I.R Gallery, NY and exhibitions at the Art Museum of the Americas (Washington, DC), and MoLAA (California).
Her work is represented in several institutional and private collections, including the Fondazione Luciano Benetton (Italy), Jacobo Borges Museum (Venezuela), and the Art Museum of the Americas (USA). Mendoza has been featured in The New York Times, Architectural Record Magazine, and Art Nexus, among others. She has received recognition from NY MTA Arts for Transit, winning Galeria Galou’s First Juried Show (NY) and earning an honorable mention at the Cantv FIA Young Artists Salon (Caracas).
Elizabeth Velazquez (born 1962 in Bridgeport, CT) is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. Her practice brings together disparate objects that would rarely intersect, highlighting the fragmented yet interconnected nature of ourselves and our relationships with others. By forging these unexpected associations, she creates a sense of wholeness—openings and closures that suggest the emergence of new narratives.
Elizabeth earned a B.A. in Women’s Studies and History from UCLA. She has shown her work in New York galleries such as La Mama, Gallery 128, Ceres, Gallery Molly Krom, and at Salon Zürcher in New York and Paris. Her pieces belong to a variety of private collections both in the United States and abroad.
Carlos Mendoza received his M.A. in sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London. In Venezuela, he was head of the department of restoration and conservation of Sculpture of the Galería de Arte Nacional. He taught at the Escuela de Artes Plasticas Cristóbal Rojas in Venezuela. He was president of the National Association of the Young Sculpture. He has participated in several solo and group exhibitions, including the Conac Gallery, the V National Salon of Young Artists, Venezuela, the VII National Biennial of Visual Arts, Galería de Arte Nacional, XLII, XLIII and XLIV Arturo Michelena Hall, Galería Oro Negro, Venezuela, the 8th Small and Medium Sculpture Triennial, Budapest, which was part of an exhibition that later went to Bucharest, Belgrade, Reykjavik, Stockholm, Vienna, Paris and The Hague among others. He has received multiples awards including, Julio Morales Lara Awards, Arturo Michelena Hall of Valencia. Sculpture Award, Aragua Hall. National Encounter of Sculptors Award Fundarte. Caracas Metro Award and II Prize Francisco Narváez Sculpture Biennial. Special mention in the Sculpture Hall. His work is in the Art Museum of Maracay, Aragua; Andrés Pérez Mujica Open Air Museum and Ateneo Collection, Valencia; Minas de Aroa National Park, Yaracuy, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Zulia, Maracaibo, among others.
Nadia Martinez is a Connecticut-based Honduran multimedia artist. She started her studies in architecture in Honduras, studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts in NYC, and received her MFA in Visual Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She works with diverse media, including printmaking, painting, sculptures, and installations. Martinez has exhibited her work nationally and internationally in individual and group exhibitions at 4uattro Pareti Galleria, Italy; Stamford Art Association, CT; Zorya Fine Art, CT and Art Basel week, Miami, FL; D’Museo, Venezuela; ArtLima, Peru; Pinta Art Fair, NYC; the National Academy Museum, NYC; Södertälje Konstforening, Sweden; Museo del Juguete Antiguo, DF, Mexico, among others. She was an artist in residence at the Museum of Arts and Design, NYC. She was nominated for Women to Watch 2018, National Museum of Women in the Arts, DC by Shannon R. Stratton, MAD’s William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator of the Museum of Arts and Design, NY, NY. Her work is part of selected collections such as the Art Bank Program of the US Department of State in Washington DC and other private collections in the United States, France, Peru, and Venezuela.