Gamaliel Rodriguez: A Third Way To Look At You

Rodriguez’s large scale, hyper-realistic drawings are created with ball point pen and colored pencil on paper, as well as acrylic inks on canvas. Works from the artist’s earlier series feature indeterminate architectural structures that are overrun by an encroaching landscape, and two new works from the artist’s recent residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska, take this aesthetic further. The imagery in much of the artist’s body of work is appropriated from both real and fictional sources, as well as being loosely created from memory. The works conjure a mood of both familiarity and disquiet, quietly interacting with our own sense of place and memory.

While heavily inspired by social issues, specifically the economic crisis of his home Puerto Rico that has unfolded over the past eleven years, the artist claims that the works are a not a direct view of the island, but make subtle references to “our history, specifically in the context of being in the Greater Antilles, being Caribbean, but being part of the United States at the same time.” He goes on to say that his practice “not a reflection of our history, but there are certain historical elements you may find in it.”

This focus on landscape and “ruin,” as it relates to the built environment, is a perfect counterpoint to the theory of Third Generation Cities, a theory espoused by the Finnish architect and theorist Marco Casagrande. Rodriguez cites this post-industrial idea of reclaiming of the industrial city by nature, as as an influence. This, paired with the artist’s interest in the historical context of Puerto Rico, including its current economic crisis, coalesce in Rodriguez’ works.