Atlanta-based Venezuelan-Panamanian artist Lucha Rodríguez has brought her solo-work to Paradigm Gallery in Queens Village. Titled ‘Sense and Vision,’ what the work incorporates are four distinct collections of the artist’s “knife drawings,” created with her inventive bas-relief technique on water-colored paper.
What Philadelphians will see is art mixed with optical illusions where abstract forms arise from the optical play of light and shadow over the hand-cut surface of the paper, stimulating the senses, and inviting a synesthetic experience Rodríguez describes as “touching with your eyes”.
And how the art is created is also a process that dips into different mediums for Rodríguez, who begins her work in the studio with a ritualized routine informed by her training as a certified hypnotist.
As a release states, the process allows her to access her subconscious and sensory memories, the pursuit of which forms the basis of her practice. Foggy recollections from the deep recesses of the artist’s mind are brought into sharper focus, as she engages her senses, and concentrates on the flickers of clarity that arise. Seemingly insignificant details, like the weight and texture of an object in her hand, or the fleeting smell of a cool breeze, allow fragmented memories to resurface in her consciousness.
The artist also loves to utilize the color pink in her work as an anchor of sorts, and Rodríguez’s work, in the gallery’s words, invites slow-looking. It ultimately encouraging viewers to embrace the idiosyncrasy and illusion of perception. Art in itself is a metaphysical act of transformation, and through ‘Sense and Vision,’ that unique ideology is out in display.
And as the release also states, with each step toward its actualization, the body of work in the exhibition is rooted in phenomenological experience and sensory knowledge, driven by the artist’s intuition and the ephemeral alignment of mind and body, past and present or… ‘Sense and Vision.’
Sense and Vision will be open to the public at Paradigm (746 S 4th St,.) until Aug. 21. To learn more information, visit paradigmarts.org
