Ramiro Rodriguez Summer 2022 Featured Artist

“Umbral, “ 1999, oil on canvas, 72 x 48"

“My work has always been from personal experiences. My thoughts, the world I am immersed in and my upbringing form my art.”

by Dan Breen

Ramiro Rodriguez’s art is an homage to love and respect for his ancestry.

“I fell on the idea of my art being love letters,” says Rodriguez. “A lot of my art grows out of the desire to tell someone something. I started creating images that were about my family history and tradition.”

Rodriguez’s painting and prints are influenced by growing up in a Mexican family in the Midwest.

“I wanted to pass on to my boys at least a hint of my family traditions,” says Rodriguez. He explains his need to share grew into a desire to get more of narrative out through his art. “The act of creating became a love letter to my wife, to my children, my parents and my siblings.”

Rodriguez uses water as a design device to separate images and ideas. Working on his Master of Fine Arts at the University of Cincinnati, School of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning, he came to the realization there was a lot of water in his work.

“I started to study the way water was used in ritual and art.” He says that art is like water. “Without it we are done for,” says Rodriguez.

“Fuego” (white version), 2020, linoleum relief print, 30 x 22 1/2"

Water connects to the roots of his upbringing in the farm country of Fennville, Michigan.

“Growing up in Michigan, there were ponds on our land. We would go from pond to pond and river to stream. That’s how I grew up, with my cousins on the water. Water is inherent in me. And makes its way through my art. Water can be a creator or a destroyer,” says Rodriguez. 

"La Llorona," 2003, woodblock relief print on paper, 28 x 12". In Mexican and southwest folklore, La Llorona roams the water ways looking for her children. Rodriguez’s mother would tell him, "stay away from the water at night or La Llorona might take you."

The dichotomy of water as a savior and a destroyer, as a unifier and separator, a step between the life and death plays out across Rodriguez’s career. In the print “Toll,” a strong correlation between the saving power of water and the experience of mortality suggests sacrifice for freedom. In the print “Song of the Indicator,” water works as an environmentalist theme.

“Toll,” 2016, woodblock reduction relief print, 11 1/2 x 8 1/2"

“Song of the Indicator,” 2022, linoleum relief print, 8 x 10"

In his early work, he was engaged in representing ideas of mythical realms and psychological status. The early works such as “Pneuma I” are works in this suggestive myth style.

“Sometimes my art tries to represent the myth and essence of a story. A lot of my early work tried to illustrate and combine the same story from different parts of the world,” says Rodriguez. “Sometimes my art is representing a psychological state or represents an event in an illustrative or metaphysical way.”

"La Que Bebe No Vuelve" 2016 Woodblock relief print 33 x 26 1/2” The print tells the story of Rodriguez’s mother and her family crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico to Texas. Water plays a pivotal role in his family history. In the print his grandmother, his mother, her older sister and brothers are being paddled across the Rio Grande in a rowboat. "My mom told her older sister she heard, if you drink some water from the Rio Grande, you won’t go back to Mexico. When she told me the story, I asked, Mom, did everyone drink?" She said, No, her sister would not drink, but I did. No one went back to Mexico. Maybe her sip of the Rio Grande was good fortune for the entire family?

Rodriguez’s choice of medium has moved from painting to relief printmaking. The transition was a result of time and resources. Printmaking allows him to be more flexible and creative while raising a family than painting. Working on a relief wood block allows him to start and stop a piece of work as family needed. It’s also easier now for him to access materials to create blocks from discarded wood or linoleum than to work in paint.

“I love doing reduction prints,” says Rodriguez. “It challenges both sides of my brain. The very analytical side is working on how am I going to break this down so I can get six colors out of this block? The creative side is asking how do I want this to look? What colors will I use?”

“Caritas (from Caritas:” The Immigrant in the Word Suite), 2011, linoleum relief print, 16 x 13"

Rodriguez’ first press was a Charles Brand etching press.

“Before that I used to make prints by rubbing a spoon over my block form to create a print. I was able to do more with this press.” Rodriguez could then use heavier paper and more color, expanding what he could create.

Now he uses a Vandercook Universal press, popularly used by newspapers to make quick edits or create proofs. This press makes it easier for Rodriguez to print material faster because of a self-inking system.

Ramiro Rodriguez

" Pneuma I,” 1992, oil on canvas, 72 x 30"

“I belong to a group called Consejo Grafico Nacional. We are a consortium of Latino print houses and shops throughout the United States. We were pulled together by Gilberto Cardenas, former director of Latino Studies at Notre Dame,” says Rodriquez. “He was an art collector and knew all these print makers. He felt the group would benefit from each other.”

Rodriguez says he feels lucky to have been invited to represent Notre Dame within the group.

Rodriguez has benefited from the combined wealth of knowledge from the members of Consejo Grafico Nacional. Rodriguez explains print makers are collaborative. Print makers like to share techniques, processing and styles with one another. Rodriguez also collaborates with print makers locally and is working on a project to pool resources and equipment.

Part of Rodriguez’s art deals with social commentary. He says the Consejo Grafico influenced him to develop social concerns in his prints. Printmaking has been traditionally used to influence people and to quickly reproduce and disseminate ideas. A lot of the early Latino print makers were printing images and flyers to reach farmers or laborers and speak to their concerns. Rodriguez feels it was important to address his concerns for social justice and conservation in his art as a tradition of printmaking.

“Taller Chaparro,” 2006, woodblock relief print, 15 x 22"

“Thrum and Drone,” 2014, woodblock relief print, 72 x 32"

Rodriguez is also the Chief Art Preparator at the Snite Museum of Art on the Notre Dame Campus. He took the job to be close to his family in Southwest Michigan after grad school. He feels working in galleries and museums have given him a behind-the-scenes view of how art is used as a cultural artifact or as an influencer of culture.

“Art can be used for so many reasons,” says Rodriguez, “as propaganda, as exploration or to take advantage of a culture.”

Rodriguez works to open portals between cultures and sees his art as a pathway to create dialogue between people.

“Bendicion,” 2000, serigraph, 15 x 11"

“’Sabidurias Populares’ is part of a series of relief prints created after receiving a grant from the Indiana Arts Commission individual grants. The prints in this series were drawn from remembrance of things I would hear my parents and elders say.” He wanted to illustrate and preserve the traditional sayings of his parents and elders. “This is my way of showing appreciation and respect for the people who influenced me.”

When showing “’Sabidurias Populares’ at galleries, he put out a book for people to share their stories and sayings passed on to them from their cultures.

“Sabidurias Populares” (lick), 2017, linoleum relief print, 22 x 15”

“I think it is important for an artist to be as focused and measured in their technique and presentation as possible. I think an artist influences what they want the world to see and how people come to an understanding of their art,” says Rodriguez. “I want the message I am trying to illuminate to reach the understanding of the observer. I do not want my art to be so opaque that the art is a complete mystery.”

“Materia Prima,” 2008, oil on canvas, 24 x 48"

“Atravesar XIII,” 2018, monotype, 22 x 15”