The pieces that Manuel Rodriguez presents take their concept from self-referentiality, his intimate world, his closest bonds. A backstage, where different, still moments can be observed. The every-day moments that everybody has in which nothing transcendent takes place. It is a record of an apparent banality, where the act of thought and questioning are set out through the public and the private. The whole body of the exhibition is a “reality show”, so defined by the artist himself, where one can see a relaxed, calm modus vivendi, in contrast with the acceleration of the contemporary. A series of works in the white box, which after its first impact, generates reflections about the surface, the banal, the functions of painting, the realism from a different perspective. MR redefines memory as a tangible space, a potential space. Painting is the media with which situations are described, but at the same time, from the autonomy of the spot and the color, it creates an independent path that is one of the painting itself, one that goes beyond the similarity between the characters and their realities. Manuel works from this premise; the spot of the paint is a fundamental element; in some cases, it is the absolute main feature since the guiding lines that define the action in the paintings emerge from it. In others, one can observe drawing techniques. The small scale of the drawings or the media (sometimes the walls of the room itself), add a touch to the subversion of the look, or to the ephemeral of the situations as well.

Manuel Rodriguez adds the gesture, the meditated color, the transparency, the texture, and each one of these elements strengthen his work, the subtle difference between the real experience, and the aesthetic experience.

Fernando Lopez Lage