Elena Méndez Cancio Bello

     Was born in 1973 in San Juan Puerto Rico. Daughter of a Cuban mother and Puerto Rican father, son of Spanish immigrants. Elena obtained a bachelor's degree in marketing from Bentley University, Massachusetts. She returned to Puerto Rico, where she acquired a Master's degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Human Resources from the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. At the same time, she pursued her lifetime passion for the arts taking courses at Liga de Arte de San Juan and got Certified as a spiritual guide by Dra. Aury Moya at the School of Oriental Psychology, San Juan, Puerto Rico. She then moves to New Orleans, Louisiana and devotes herself full time to fine arts, studying photography at Tulane University and painting at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts while doing internships with different local artists. Later, Elena returned to the island of Puerto Rico, and studied at the Museum of Puerto Rico with well known local artists.

     Her pictorial work always addresses themes of emotions and mental states, rich in color and layers of paint. In her sculpture and installations she uses different kinds of materials, highlighting in her career fiber, ceramic, iron, aluminium and recycled materials. Tireless with experimentation and the modern movement, Elena begins to integrate in her pieces the use of machines, such as the "routers" and 3D printers, in order to create a dichotomy in her proposal and analyze the point of balance.