Arturo Rodriguez : The Human Comedy at The Bass Museum

Friday, 16 June 2006 16:03

Miami Beach, FL - In this series, The Human Comedy, Cuban-born Arturo Rodriguez paints large-scale canvases filled with enormous distorted heads.  These works are not portraits in the traditional sense but rather, social archetypes and caricatures.  As a self-taught artist from a remote town in Cuba, Rodriguez’s exposure to visual culture was limited to comic books, cartoons and movies.  Exiled from Cuba at the age of fourteen, Rodriguez began a new life in Europe and then America where he studied art from many cultures.

This series reflects and transforms the popular culture of the artists’ provincial Cuban town with the distance of time and the skill of a seasoned painter.  The pictorial language of Rodriguez communicates compassion and a heightened awareness of the individual’s perception of “place” within the boundaries of contemporary society.  The cast of characters represent a large spectrum of the population—from a smartly dressed lawyer confidently gazing at the viewer, to a weary housewife depicted standing in the green glow of a television screen.  As Rodriguez states “I sense the frustration of the individual in a society that is more and more monolithic, oppressed and limiting.  My work reflects that, perhaps in an unconscious way.”

Using a muted palette and sweeping brushstrokes, the subjects of the works possess a sense of movement on the canvas.  The figures of the tightly cropped paintings confront the viewer, evoking emotions based on the subject’s perception of their self-made environments or predicaments.

Arturo Rodriguez: The Human Comedy on view through August 6, 2006.

Visit The Bass Museum of Art at : http://www.bassmuseum.org/