Joseph Rodriguez "Building Blocks"
By KALAIJA MALLERY
Joseph Rodriguez’s forms integrate into the spaces around them; causing the disruption that only a careful blending of street art and installation smarts can achieve. His interventions allude to the demarcation a space that is sacred and mirror that of religious architecture (see: the arabesque decorations of ancient islamic mosques) which causes a presence that is strikingly still, and a sense of permanence in spite of the fact that often times, they are washed away or covered up shortly after they appear. When light shines through Rodriguez’s patterns, which are often painted directly onto windows, it casts shadows that spread across the walls and slowly shift with time. His palettes are often consistent, and at times he will repeat patterns with paint directly on the walls. Other materials, often concrete and sand, are deconstructed and reconstituted to become objects that don’t just occupy space, they (quietly) command it. These heavy weighted rectangular forms create MC Escher-esque blocks that play with negative space and your relation to the room they’re in. By bending the two and three-dimensional planes, Rodriguez’s work takes the visual language and impermanence of street art to the religious levels of architectural interventionism, with an eye that asks you to locate yourself within the space at the level of the pattern itself.
Joseph Rodriguez creates installation pieces that are informed by personal narratives, religion, identity, and constructs of trauma and suicide. Rodriguez often works with masking tape, sand, and acrylic paint to form language that derives from Mayan patterning, stain glass, and graffiti. These works are usually short lived and require viewers to be fully immersed in the space and the moment.
Rodriguez recently graduated with his Master’s degree in visual studies at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. He previously earned a Bachelors of Art from San Francisco State in 2016, where he focused on painting and drawing. Rodriguez has shown at many group shows in small venues since 2010, including a solo exhibition at the Euphrat Museum of Art. Rodriguez has been awarded the De Anza Student Art Show: Juror’s Award.
