Rubén Rodrigo
Salamanca, Spain, 1980.
Lives and works in Madrid, Spain.
Rubén Rodrigo's work brings to the fore some of the practices developed by the New York school in the second half of the twentieth century. The soak-painting or soak-painting of Helen Frankenthaller or Morris Louis is the starting point of Rodrigo's research in which the behavior of the paint on the canvas assumes its random nature. The masses of color slide over the support in a sort of action painting and the layer upon layer technique is also close to the glazes of the Baroque painters of the 17th century.
This peculiar combination of influences together with the use of surrealist findings and certain concepts of Japanese Shintoism gives rise to a work where controlled chance, mystery and a certain tactile quality related to lightness are combined.
In his canvases, Rodrigo explores the formal possibilities of color in practically monochromatic fields. "I want to achieve maximum purity through a unique staining process that the Japanese call Sumi-e and which consists of an ancestral monochromatic technique that pursues the synthesis of the regular forms of nature through a single brush stroke. I am interested in the pulse, tension, spirituality and vitality of the pictorial space".
Rubén Rodrigo holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Salamanca, the city where, in 2019, his exhibition "La Luz y la furia" was held at the DA2 Domus Artium Art Center, one of the most prestigious contemporary art centers in Spain. His work is represented in some of the most relevant private collections in the international arena such as the H.E.F Collection or the Rucandio Collection, among others.