ALICIA RODRIGUEZ ART

My journey as an artist has guided me through a 40+ year path of exploration and self-reflection, specifically through painting, glass fusing, gilding, ceramic, and most recently, quilting. Born into a multi-cultural and poly-artistic family in New York in the 50s, I was thrust into the world of art from a young age. I began my professional career studying architecture in the “Universidad Central de Venezuela,” and continued to grow my passion in Paris, France, working at “Atelier Delta D'Architecture” and studying Modern and                                                                     Contemporarie art closely. This led me to study Fine                                                            Arts in the “Escuela de Artes Visuales Cristóbal                                                                  Rojas,” back in Venezuela and to become a                                                                          Photography professor for the Graphic Design                                                                    Department at “Universidad Nueva Esparta and for                                                             Instituto de Diseño Villasmil de Leon.” During this                                                               time, I also worked as an art director and                                                                            photographer for publicity and editorial companies,                                                            and for 15 years, I tutored individuals in both                                                                      painting and photography at my private Studio in                                                                Caracas. I then moved to Florida in the 90’s and got                                                            involved with a nonprofit organization for children                                                                with special needs, “La Ventana de los Cielos,”                                                                     volunteering my time to give art lessons to the                                                                    children, and later taking an 8 month hiatus to learn                                                            gilding and Glass mosaic restoration in Florence,                                                                 Italy as part of a restoration program with UNESCO.                                                           Through my years as an artist, I have been selected to place my work in various exhibitions around Venezuela and the USA, and have won multiple awards and recognitions.

 

Through the years, I’ve reflected my memories, roots, and experiences in my art, and related these to mythology and to alchemy. These paintings draw a parallel between the Venezuelan diaspora and the infamous Greek hell. The political exiles and the displaced lives of the Venezuelan people mirror the journey of those who

crossed the biblical desert in search of the Promised Land, in

this case the beloved Venezuela of our childhood, a land that

exists only in our memory. Having grown up in a family with

members who fought against dictators, I am no stranger to this

feeling. Now that I have lived the horrors of Dictator Chavez

and Dictator Maduro and have had to flee the country where I

was raised, I depict my story, painting a struggle in which

every refugee can revisit his own past. 

Much like the Greek myth of Ariadne, in my latest project,

"QUILT,” I enter the labyrinth of my childhood memories and

"fight" against contempt for the "feminine tasks.” I weave a

metaphorical gold thread through the ages, and I come back to

the 21st century with a newborn understanding and

appreciation for all of the work that women have done.

Seaming has been a generational tradition in my family: my

French grandmother, a widow with three sons in WWII,

embroidered tablecloths and other garments to feed and raise

her children during the depression in New York; my Venezuelan

grandmother lived a comfortable life in a hacienda and taught

the girls of the town to make their trousseau for the day they were married; my mother, a New Yorker graduated from Parson School of Design, knitted in the evenings for fun with her friends while drinking  gin and tonic. The thread of time is woven into these cloths, creating a quilt of common experiences among the family’s women. Through its creation, a common feminine space has been developed, in which women speak of “woman things,” secrets and intimacies. To honor these women, I tell their stories alongside mine through the Quilts whose centennial function is to transmit memories and tell our family history. Through all my works, I bring the tradition into modernity and link the history of the women in the family.