Rodrigo Echeverria: Qué Cholulada!

In the words of Nicolas Medina Mora, Rodrigo Echeverría “follows a very different scent of formal laws than those that govern much of contemporary Mexican art. His oeuvre is too diverse and too original to fit comfortably in one or another school and the omnivorous curiosity that nurtures his sensibility could well be described as neo-baroque painter. [He collects] gestures, colors and styles that he then makes his own, not through disrespectful appropriation, but rather by drinking from the countless fountains of human diversity. The fundamental effect that Echeverría’s canvases induce in the viewer is a sort of confusion that proves sometimes joyful, others disquieting, but always productive. Each successive viewing reveals new possibilities, new references, new readings. His paintings are divided into figurative, portraiture and landscape.”

Rodrigo Echeverria (b. 1988, Mexico) is a self-taught painter that began painting from an early age within the context of a conservative Catholic society. After graduating from University, he saw that real learning happens outside of institutions. He opted for museums and art residencies, and the exploration of different cultures and countries.

He has had important portrait commissions including a portrait of the second room of the Nation’s Supreme Court of Justice and his collectors encompass all levels of society.

Echeverría explains that for him, “a painting is a synthesis of the movement of color, brushstrokes and the abstract. I divide my work into two: observation painting and imagination painting. One does not exist without the other. The first is where I paint the things that are in front of me at different moments in my life, they are the location of existences; a chess game with time and space. The second is where I paint the present synthesis of my life, a will, a scroll.”