"What I paint is something that no longer exists. Like how the stars we're looking at are already dead—their light reaches us after they've turned to dust. I'm painting dust—memories of places that no longer exist."
"Rodriguez's paintings trace interior feeling through liminal spaces and sensory impressions that resist language: the smell of an orange, adolescent yearning, the trace of a place that survives only in memory. For him, painting reconnects these lineages not as fixed archives but as living impressions, continuously reshaped over time."
"Across this new body of work, figures turn to analog devices as if reaching for a portal of escape from the relentlessness of contemporary media cycles. The paintings grapple with the paradox that the tools meant to connect us often leave us feeling more isolated and divided than ever."
Francisco Rodriguez creates paintings depicting non-existent places and sensory memories, comparing his practice to observing dead stars whose light reaches us long after their demise. His work traces interior feeling through liminal spaces and impressions resistant to language—smells, yearning, and traces of memory. Drawing from Japanese Edo-period printmaking, Chinese landscape painting, and Flemish Renaissance traditions, Rodriguez employs flattened compositions with muted palettes of cool blues and creams punctuated by primary reds and oranges. Contemporary figures appear throughout in various states of rest and movement as embodiments of the subconscious. His exhibition Private Nightmares introduces darker emotional registers shaped by present-day anxieties, depicting figures turning to analog devices as escape portals from relentless media cycles, exploring the paradox that connection tools often increase isolation.
#memory-and-loss #contemporary-anxiety #digital-isolation #liminal-spaces #historical-artistic-traditions
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