EDEL RODRIGUEZ

About

Edel Rodriguez is a Cuban American artist who has exhibited internationally with shows in Los Angeles, Toronto, New York, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Spain. Inspired by personal history, religious rituals, politics, memory, and nostalgia, his bold, figurative works are an examination of identity, cultural displacement, and mortality.

 

Edel Rodriguez was born in Havana, Cuba in 1971. He was raised in El Gabriel, a small farm town surrounded by fields of tobacco and sugar cane. In 1980 Rodriguez and his family boarded a boat and left for America during the Mariel boatlift. They settled in Miami where Rodriguez was introduced to and influenced by American pop culture for the first time.  Socialist propaganda and western advertising, island culture and contemporary city life, are all aspects of his life that continue to inform his work.

 
In 1994, Rodriguez graduated with honors in painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. In 1998, he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Manhattan’s Hunter College graduate program. Throughout his career, Rodriguez has received commissions to create artwork for numerous clients, including The New York Times, TIME Magazine, The New Yorker, and many other publications and book publishers. Rodriguez's artwork is in the collections of a variety of institutions, including the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., as well as in numerous private collections.

Group show, SEIU Gallery, NY, NY, 2007
Downright show, PEP Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2007
Las Fronteras Morales, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Tenerife, Spain, 2008
Spots show
, Gallery 7, NY, NY, 2008

Power by Numbers, Gallery Nucleus, Los Angeles, CA, 2008

Hidden Secrets, Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto, 2008

Cut to the Drummer, Steam Whistle Gallery, Toronto, 2009

Obsessions, Gallery 7, NY, NY, 2009

Dime Bag 3, Giant Robot, NY, NY, 2009

Here | There, Solo Show, Gallery Nucleus, Los Angeles, 2010

BLAB! Retrospective, S.I. Gallery, NY, NY, 2010

Things in My Head, Solo Show, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, 2010

The Blind Nymph, 4th Wall Gallery, Dallas, TX, 2010

KABOOM!, La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2010

A Few of My Favorite Things, Gallery Nucleus, Los Angeles, CA, 2010

The Hereafter, BLAB! Show, Copro Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2010

Art Bazaar, Lyons Weir Ltd. Gallery, New York, NY, 2011

Foot, Oo Gallery, Kingston, NY, 2011

100 Euro Show, Wieden + Kennedy Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2011

Art Trek, Mekanik Strip Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium, 2011

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Guest Lecturer
School of Visual Arts, NY, NY, 2000
Pratt Institute, Graduate Program, NY, NY, 2005
Parsons The New School for Design, NY, NY, 2003 and 2005
Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, MD, 2006
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, 2008
Emily Carr University, Vancouver, BC, 2009
University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 2010
Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, CA, 2010
SOI, NY, NY, 2011
Brown University, Providence, RI 2011