Diego Rodriguez-Warner: Sharp Pause
May 06 - July 15,2023
From RULE Gallery: "RULE Gallery is pleased to present Sharp Pause, an exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Diego Rodriguez-Warner at our Marfa, TX, location. A public reception will be held Saturday, May 6, from 6-8pm, with the artist in attendance. The show will be on view from May 6– July 15, 2023. Gallery hours are Wednesday – Saturday, 11am-5 pm. In the past decade, Diego Rodriguez-Warner has garnered acclaim for his richly complex figurative paintings that lean on drawing and printmaking at their core. His characteristic works unify flatly painted acrylics and wood carving into single compositions that probe a trompe l’oeil aesthetic that simulates animation. The depicted figures appear disjunctive and entangled in motion and thought, assuming multiple subjectivities while disrupting any legible readings of their bodies. The seductive scenes in the resulting paintings compel viewers into uncomfortable involvement, analysis, and reflection on a society of competing narratives tearing at the seams, simultaneously coming together and at risk of falling apart. Rodriguez-Warner has ruminated on the histories of art and canonization, the residual effects of colonialism and its violence, and modernity through the inquiry of screen culture. Recently, the artist has turned to "make the paintings quieter, but just as sharp." The paintings in Sharp Pause feature seated or reclining nudes in nebulous, artificial spaces attempting to find ease or repose. By combining, reshaping and energizing the relaxed bodies, the traditionally passive figures acquire newfound agency while thwarting any voyeuristic interpretations. Their flattened miens and twisted limbs interrupt the viewers desire for straightforward answers, their beauty and material mastery imbued with something more confrontational and disconcerting. Diego Rodriguez-Warner (b. 1986; Managua, Nicaragua) lives and works in Denver, CO. In 2008, he studied under the Cuban Minister for Fine Arts, Lesbia Vent Dumois, in Havana, and in 2009 he earned a BA from Hampshire College, followed by an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2013. Additionally, he is recipient of fellowships from both Toby Devan Lewis (2013) and a Joan Mitchell (2020). Rodriguez-Warner has exhibited internationally and nationally in Berlin, Denver, Havana, Los Angeles, New York City, Marfa, and Miami among others. His work was featured at, and acquired by, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR. He is represented in public and private collections around the world and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major museums including the Washington Pavilion, South Dakota; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; the Museo De Las Americas, Denver; and the Gallery of Contemporary Art, Colorado Springs."
Reception: May 06, 2023 | 6-8 pm
RULE Gallery (Marfa)
204 E. San Antonio St
Marfa, Texas 79843
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