Cooke Latham Gallery opens an exhibition of paintings by Francisco Rodriguez
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Saturday, November 23, 2024


Cooke Latham Gallery opens an exhibition of paintings by Francisco Rodriguez
Installation view.



LONDON.- Francisco Rodriguez has created a now familiar world through his painting, a menacing urban hinterland of lone figures and flaming horizons. In his new exhibition The Silence that Lives in Houses Rodriguez reveals another side to this narrative. The series is comprised of quiet interiors: a classroom, a sitting room, a bedroom, an abandoned art class. The exhibition's title is taken from a 1947 painting by Henri Matisse and perfectly describes the palpable silence that pervades the paintings.

The interiors depict 'safe' spaces from Rodriguez's teenage years and are painted from memory without recourse to reference materials. Rather than trying to paint something allegedly universal, he engages the viewer with the authenticity of his own specific experience. This is not a perfectly rendered reality but instead the recollections of adolescence as informed by his current influences and interests.

In Assembly, 2021 we are witness to an abandoned classroom. The tables are disordered, the blackboard still etched with chalk and there is a jarring absence of chairs. The work pertains to 2006, an important year in Chile for Rodriguez's generation in which the student union started a new political movement against the last vestiges of Pinochet's dictatorship. The chairs have been borrowed for the student meeting taking place outside. On the blackboard is a fragment of the Manifiesto Zapatista from 1996. Translated the text reads: "We were born of the night. We live in the night. We will die in her. But the light will be tomorrow for others, for all those who today weep at the night, for those who have been denied the day. The light will be for all of them. For everyone everything." This poetic text was written by a military rebel group in Mexico who fought for indigenous rights and against the exploitation of the jungle by the US and Mexican government and private industries. The juxtaposed political references, along with visual clues to the artists current influences, disconnect the work from a specific place and time.




Rodriguez's landscapes are defined by strong intervening horizon lines and dominating skies. At first glance the new exhibition is in fact void of a horizon, until one notices the raking angle of the compositions and depth of field achieved through the large expanses of floor. The horizon line continues in the soft join of floor and wall. The ceilings of the rooms are cropped to a narrow margin. The agoraphobia of the limitless horizon has been replaced by the comfort of the four walls while the edge of the canvas acts as a proscenium to the empty stage within.

Rodriguez incorporates numerous disparate references to create his distinctive aesthetic language. The painting The Silence that Lives in Houses, 2021 is inspired by the living room in the artist's childhood house. The bold colours are reminiscent of Japanese woodblocks, while the furniture is reduced to the unmodulated decorative plains of the Fauvist school. A cat, flattened to a silhouette, pads across the canvas. Recurring throughout the exhibition as a domestic motif, the cat is used by Rodriguez to symbolise safety; dogs prowling outside are the menacing antithesis.

In The Twin Room, 2021 the posters on the wallsare portals to the events taking place outside. Earlier paintings by the artist are rendered in miniature, self-reflexive reminders of his continuously evolving visual language. There is a continuum between this new body of work and the artist's previous paintings. An intricate, non-linear narrative runs throughout, a nod perhaps to the experimental literary heritage of Latin America. Rodriguez has built a world in which each painting adds another layer of complexity and comprehension to the whole.

Apollo (the drawing lesson), 2021, is perhaps the quietest of all these large-scale works. It is as though the viewer is an art student returning for a sketch pad who inadvertently catches the empty room unawares. It is also possibly the most tongue in cheek. On a ubiquitous classroom table rests a plaster cast of the Apollo Belvedere, long held as the western signifier of aesthetic perfection. It sits gently mocked by the proliferation of student interpretations across the walls. One can hear the dust settle.










Today's News

September 10, 2021

Art fairs come blazing back, precarious but defiant

Art Basel and UBS publish 'Resilience in the Dealer Sector: A Mid-Year Review 2021'

A blue-chip art bonanza: Macklowe Collection goes to Sotheby's

Why art struggled to address the horrors of 9/11

Hindman Auctions to present Native American Art Auction this month

New York exhibition celebrates Dior's American influence

The first Dutch Neanderthal now has a face

Artpace San Antonio announces a transformative gift from Janet Lennie Flohr

Royal Institute of British Architects announces 2021 National Award winners

Cao Fei wins the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2021

'Our Secret Fire: Contemporary Artists and the Alchemical Tradition' opens at Hirschl & Adler

Funding gap forces British Council to scale back

National Museum of Women in the Arts announces new acquisitions

The Approach opens solo exhibitions by Jack Lavender and Sara Barker

Cooke Latham Gallery opens an exhibition of paintings by Francisco Rodriguez

James Allen St. John original artwork for century-old Edgar Rice Burroughs novels heading to Heritage Auctions

Frederik Vercruysse opens a show with new and exclusive prints and objects editions at Spazio Nobile Gallery

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture exhibition marks the 55th anniversary of the Harlem Institute of Fashion

Phillips announces The Crossover with Saint Fleur and Project Backboard

Xavier Hufkens opens an exhibition of works by Lynda Benglis

MFA Boston appoints theo tyson as Curator of Fashion Arts

Michael Constantine, dad in 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding,' dies at 94

rodolphe janssen opens two new exhibitions of works by Thomas Lerooy and Betty Tompkins

JD Malat Gallery opens Physis, a solo exhibition by Spanish artist Luis Olaso

National Gallery of Canada welcomed more than 75,700 visitors this summer since reopening in mid-July

Rehabilitation of Alcohol Addicts: Importance of Rehab Clinics

Playing PKV Games Domino through Applications Get Various Benefits




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful