RUBEN RODRIGUEZ MARTINEZ
"Rubén Rodríguez exhibits pieces that show ideal aesthetics reinforcing his sui generis eroticism of elegant suggestive lines in an interplay of evident visual vagueness, where drawing flows into painting and hence conceives a kind of dialogue among these works. He focuses this dialogue on another significant aspect of all his artistic production: perseverance without concessions in that refined and different eroticism that defines him within the contemporary and postmodernist Cuban art scene. Armed with the weapons provided by the new figuration trend, Rubén Rodríguez also uses neo-expressionist elements to offer us a very particular iconography without precedents, I d dare to say, in Cuban art history where he has gained a place as one of the most profound and cutting-edge creators." ANTONIO
FERNANDEZ SEOANE Publisher / Editor "ART OnCuba""Although Rubén's work is part of the long pictorial tradition of the female nude: Titian, Carracci, Rembrandt, Botticelli, Rubens, Manet, Degas, Picasso, and Botero;
I think that from a stylistic point of view he is closer to the work of Amedeo Modigliani, Toulouse-Lautrec, Egon Schiele, Francis Bacon, Oswaldo Guayasamín and even to the sculptures of Henry Moore.
In his forty-year career, Rubén Rodríguez has showcased his work in over thirty solo exhibitions and has participated in more than a hundred group shows in Cuba and abroad. In 2007 he was awarded the Distinction for National Culture in recognition of his pictorial work and the excellence of his graphic work, to which are added long years dedicated to teaching and training generations of artists and engravers at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), as well as in the "René Portocarrero" Experimental Screen Printing Workshop in Havana."
RUBENS RIOL Professor of Art History & Art Critic Princeton UniversityORANDO ENTRE FLORES - PRAYING BETWEEN FLOWERS, 2023
ACRYLIC & CHARCOAL ON CANVAS
SOMBRA ATADA - BOUND SHADOW, 2012
FRENTE A FRENTE, 2012
ACRYLIC & CHARCOAL ON CANVAS
70.5 X 51 IN
CON SU SOMBRA - WITH HIS SHADOW, 201, OIL AND &OIL CHARCOAL ON CANVAS
RUBEN RODRIGUEZ MARTINEZ "IMAGES DE ROJO" SERIES, 2021
ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
48 X 40 IN
Ruben Rodriguez Martinez
Ruben Rodriguez Martinez (b. 1959, Cardenas, Matanzas, Cuba) graduated from the Provincial School of Plastic Arts in Villa Clara in 1975 and from the National School of Plastic Arts in Havana, Cuba in 1980 with a degree in painting, engraving and drawing.
Ruben is the founder of the Experimental Serigraphy (Screen Printing) Workshop, “Rene Portocarrero" and was a professor at the Engraving Department at the Cuban University of Arts (ISA) in Havana & Fundació Miró Mallorca Museum in Palma, Spain He has received the Distinction for National Culture in Havana, Cuba, along with the Distinction for Artistic Value. His art is featured in museums, galleries and private collections in Germany, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Iran, Venezuela, Portugal, France and Cuba.
"The female figure has always been the absolute protagonist of my paintings, drawings and engravings.
As a man and artist, I sincerely admire and respect a woman ’ s capacity for procreation. I see motherhood as an act of sublime beauty, along with the delicacy and sensuality that emerges from the naked female body.
That’s why breasts are an omnipresent symbol of fertility in my visual repertoire. As a result of my creative process, my characters are always anonymous, headless, and ambiguous in their physical appearance, since I’m interested in preserving the identity of my muses "
