Artist Presentation: ISIS RODRÍGUEZ

Figure 1. Be All that You Can Be, Isis Rodriguez (1997) Acrylic Gouache and India Ink on Bristol

Isis Rodriguez was born and raised in the United States. Her father is Mexican, and her mother is Puerto Rican. In 1997 she worked as an exotic dancer in San Francisco to investigate sex positive feminism. From her experiences and proximity to sex work she created the controversial series "My Life as a Comic Stripper". This series was a satirical commentary on the experiences of exotic dancers and focused on decentering the question of sex work around a moral issue but rather a labor issue.

In Be All that You Can Be there is a female soldier situated at the forefront of the image protecting various figures in the background. One figure in the background of the random assortment of women is La Virgen de Guadalupe. We can see that she is La Virgen de Guadalupe because she has a halo representing divinity and she is cloaked in a green robe while praying. Right next to the La Virgen de Guadalupe two very sexualized figures.  These women look like they are exotic dancers and given the subject matter of the series that is a safe assumption, but they could also just be women embracing their sexuality. Nonetheless, the commentary of painting is that the soldier is defending all forms of female identity.

Rodriguez describes her cartoon style as classical art. "In animation, hand drawn cartoons are referred to as 'classical.' Though many consider the cartoon lowbrow  or pop art, I believe the cartoon to be the modern classical figure. The cartoon is an elegant, minimalistic drawing of the realistic figure, and the realistic figure is just an over-rendered cartoon. " Rodriguez uses her minimalistic style and mixes it interestingly with realism in her series “Legends from the Land of Nepantla" Nepantla is conflict ridden plain in our own minds, where self reflection is incorporated into confrontantion and sometimes hope and love. Interestingly Rodriguez did not shy away from incorporating her cartoon figure of Eve from a different series.