Curatorial Rationale

My exhibition relies around the theme of power struggles and the abuse of such power. The underlying themes throughout are about my own relationship with my parents and my separation from them, and my coming to terms with it. This theme came to me because of an argument I had earlier in the year with my parents about my own religious beliefs, which led to a one-sided argument about them going to hell because they could not truly convert me. However, many artists such as Francisco Goya, Tiziano Vecelli (Titian), and Cleon Peterson were inspiring to me because of the way that their artworks could show such a powerful message with such small uses of color and position. Peterson inspired me to create black and white figures, letting the background and the position the figures were in do the speaking, instead of making the theme obvious. I used digital media to make most of my artwork, with only a few of them being a painting and a photograph. My medium is symbolic as well, as it represents my moving on from traditional artwork to digital, in the sense that I'm moving on from my parents traditions and carving my own path. My goal with this exhibition is for the viewer to question the ethics behind pushing forward a certain viewpoint or religion onto a child, or someone who cannot think for themselves yet.

My artworks all have some form of religion involved in them, even if it does not show it directly, particularly seen in The Art of Worship, Shifting Blame, Isolation by Choice and Torment. Additionally, most of my artworks have realistic backgrounds, as seen in Shifting Blame and Isolation by Choice, an appropriation of Peterson's technique of minimalism in his color choices, going for only 1 or 2 colors to show a person. This artistic choice was the inspiration behind singular color figures, as seen in my artworks like Isolation by Choice, and Shifting Blame. These clashing colors helped me to show the difference between myself and my family, choosing to paint them black, while I remain white. While white tends to represent purity, I chose to go with its meaning of untouched, to represent my lack of choice in religion. On the other hand, black represents the absence of free will to choose, as black is the absence of colors.

Also, to improve the way I wanted emotions to come out in the artworks, I used blank faces and only one color, as seen in Arachne's Final Weave and Desperation, more to test myself more than anything. But with this, it helped me instead focus on posture and hand placement, which I felt were just as important as facial expressions in showing emotions. This was because at the start of this journey, I explored mythical abuses of power, often portrayed in stories and myths. But as I went on with my first artwork, I started getting personal with it, to the point where I chose to use what I had with my family to be depicted as a power struggle. This started leading to me drawing out events that took place in my life because of this, which is symbolized by the church my family used to attend being used in my 5th, 6th, and 7th artworks. In the final artwork, the church changes to a new church my family attends now, after tolerating my views on religion.

For the way that my artwork will be hung showing my ascension from traditional artwork into digital artwork, so that it can be symbolic of my change from other's traditions. Starting with Arachne's Final Weave and Death of Imagination, both traditional art pieces, side by side. This will be followed by The Art of Worship, which will be to the right of the other two. Under that, in a four piece side by side will be Desperation, Torment, Shifting Blame, and Isolation by Choice. At the bottom will be my last artwork, Tolerance, which shows the end of my journey.

None of the artwork in this gallery is for sale

Contact the artist at cjrodriguez3.cr@gmail.com