Victor Rodriguez
Mexican, born 1970Anatomy, 1997
Not on view
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions78 × 116 in. (198.1 × 294.6 cm)
Gift of the Friends of Modern Art, 1998.6
The super-real paintings of Victor Rodriguez go beyond mere imitation of nature. By placing his subjects in enigmatic poses or, in this case, repeating the same figure on a larger-than-life scale, the paintings have a psychological impact on the viewer. The often-implausible situations are at odds with the credibility of his realistic portrayals. This double portrait of his wife is, at once, humorous and provocative.
He creates his finished works by painting and repainting photographs, allowing them to transform into fractured compositions with unexpected colors. Rodriguez likens this process to the ways in which memories can cause one to re-imagine the present by reworking traces of the past.
