7: Patricia Rodriguez

Patricia Rodriquez is mostly known as a public artist, and my presentation will emphasize her most recognized work- her collaboration with the Mujeres Muralistas. Still, I wanted to include an example of her artwork that is both individual and recent. She has a website with a portfolio of her more current work, which, though sparse, features an assortment of abstract, monotype prints. Lace was made using this technique, wherein the artist creates a painting on plexiglass and transfers it onto paper. The style and subject matter is very clearly distinct from those of the murals she collaborated on, but I thought it would be interesting to compare common threads.

Rodriguez's bio on her website states that her grandmother was her first artistic influence. Her grandmother always set time aside after work for her creativity, and this would often include sewing and embroidering. Rodriguez remembers sitting next to her grandmother as she did this. The image she chose to illustrate this bio with is the monotype Lace. It is clearly abstracted, but the central band of knit white is recognizable as the source for its title. This suggestion of fiber art references both her grandmother and women's work more generally. In this way, I think the bridge with her earlier work is a thematic one. She once described the Mujeres Muralistas' work saying, "We were painting women. Women in the marketplace, women breastfeeding, women doing art. People got really angry that we were doing that. ‘How could you do this when there’s so much going on?’ but we were saying that being a woman is a revolution in society."