Luigi Rodriguez

Biography

Luigi Rodriguez, b. 1984 in Caracas, is a visual artists who works with the assemblage of stamps. His narrative has a strong sense of character and visual consistency achieved by the employment of used stamps as a unique tool of communication; Through he’s collage he refers to world’s most iconic celebrities and personas. Rodriguez also relays on alternative mediums such as still photography, illustration, and graphics design as visual framework for his collage compositions.

Rodriguez was exposed to visual compositions from an early age. Encouraged by his mother, he experienced Caracas’ cultural art scene where he was not only exposed to Venezuela’s colonial and kinetic legacy, but he also widely savored the international contemporary art scene getting acquainted to pioneering artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Jones and Andy Warhol, among others. Being exposed to such artistic movements made a strong visual imprint on the artist that has broadly influenced his aesthetics.

Rodriguez has a Bachelor in communications at Moteávila University, Caracas, Vzla. While living in Toronto, he pursued a career in Advertising where he studied creative writing and graphic design, tools he would later use to bring to life his ideas freely with passion.

Since 2010, Rodriguez has been experimenting with stamps that were giving to him by his philatelist father. Since then he has shown his work in various venous, most recently in 2014 at Quinta Villa Sota, titled Viajes al pasado (Journeys to the past), and Pop, Pop, Icon Pop at Ascanio Gallery in Miami, 2015.

In Rodriguez’s work, contrasts between the iconic imagery and the impressed patterns of used stamps reflect the fragility of time lapsing, reminicent of the artist’s marvelous urge to live one’s life vivedly with delight.

Rodriguez is based in Caracas and spends his days traveling to the past to find inspiration in structures, places and people that have influenced his life, constantly turning those feelings into contemporary works of art.

Artist Statement

Everything is forever.

My dad, who as a philatelist always showed me his stamp collection and told me about how he used to exchange stamps (before de digital era) with people from all over the world through regular mail, inspired me to create a map of the world using used stamps of each country.

I continued my creative search by cutting and pasting stamps on images of structures, places and people who have influenced my life, studying them first to really express what they mean to me. By doing this I could finally relax, focusing on one thing only and not be distracted by all the messages technology has exposed us to. I found my personal goals (1) to travel the world, (2) meet mind-opening people and (3) become a better person. Hoping to remain in people´s lives; not because my art will still be standing on their walls, but because my art made them feel something, changed them. I work hard everyday to prove myself that everything is forever, that I am forever.

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