ARTIST STATEMENT
For some months, I have been interested in the binary notion of security / insecurity in non-referential images. I chose to produce aerial views of industrial, military or civilian sites. The places I create are non-traditional; the majority of them are created from my own inventions based on studies, research and memories of former industrial areas in Puerto Rico. I make these aerial views with a felt-tip pen and acrylic. When completed, they have a quality of printmaking that look like drawing on canvas or paper. Some people believe that the sites I create are real and, sometimes, people share memories about the sites that I invent. Furthermore, there are some instances where people truly believe that their parents had worked there in the past. It's fascinating how an invented image and an invented text can create an alternate reality that is based in this industrial complex and the the memories and backgrounds of the public. My work investigates security in urban development, the built environment and the natural landscape; it also investigates the legacy and failure of modernism through the filter of the Caribbean.
BIOGRAPHY
Gamaliel Rodríguez works on paper through a combination of felt and ballpoint pens to produce a series of aerial views of artificial industrial, military, and civilian structures imagined in Puerto Rico and US territories. Visual memories are manipulated into fictional drawings. The photorealist scenes initiate a unique social experiment, interacting with viewers’ personal memories and sense of place. He obtained his Master’s Degree in Visual Arts at the Kent Institute of Art and Design in Kent, UK in 2005. Among his numerous residencies is the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2011.
His works are in many permanent collections including, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah; The Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico and Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y Leon in Leon (MUSAC), Spain. His 2015 and 2016 exhibitions include "Reminiscent of Time Passed,” SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah; "Caleidoscopio y Rompecabezas,” Latinoamérica en la Colección, MUSAC; Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Gran Canarias Spain; “Muestra Nacional de Arte, San Juan Puerto Rico;” the XVIII Bienal de Cerveira, Portugal; “The Bronx Calling,” The Bronx Biennial 2015; “Saludo a la Trienal, Trienal Poligrafica de San Juan,” Puerto Rico; “La vida es una mierda;” “Narrativas de desesperanza, incomunicacion y fracaso en el capitalismo de hoy- Fondos MUSAC” in the Domus Atrium in Salamanca, Spain.
