Richard L. Rodriguez

BFA Printmaking

ARTIST STATEMENT: I live and work in Arlington, Virginia exploring various artistic mediums including photography, bookmaking, and sculpture but the bulk of my work revolves around the creation of art with traditional printmaking processes. In the artistic process it is important that I have direct personal involvement and “hands on” participation in the works I create. Unfortunately, many artworks today are created much like cars on an assembly line with the “artists” having little to do with the actual creation and/or production of their work. “Scam Artist” is a direct response to today’s “Mega artists” who are more interested in personal financial enrichment than holding a mirror to our society or pushing the bounds of artistic inspiration. While I do not advocate for the “starving artist” stereotype, I believe these materialistically driven artists undermine the legitimate efforts of those trying to push the bounds of creativity towards the next great art movement.            

As an older artist, I seek to enhance my artistic pursuits by extrapolating on my life experiences and to release the emotions associated with of those experiences through my art. Principal among these is a desire to raise my artistic voice as a Veteran and to assist other Veterans do the same. It is my personal priority and obligation to those who have honorably served.

I draw my artistic influences from multiple historical art movements. However, my two primary inspirational artistic periods are the early modern (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso) and the Pop Art Movement of the 1960’s (James Rosenquist, Claes Oldenburg and Roy Lichtenstein). Like these pioneering artists demonstrated in the past, I hope to continue to blur boundaries of “high” and “low” art, re-enforcing the reality that art can be created from most any foundation.

Through my work I hope to stimulate emotional conversations in the minds of unsuspecting spectators.