Rodney Artiles

RODNEY ARTILES: "I have always been fascinated with outlines; the profiles of people in well lit doorways and windows, the focus on heads in advertisements, on cameos, coins, stamps, and haloed figures of medieval paintings. The head in particular has come to have significant meaning to me, as a symbol. By itself it relates ideas concerning the seat of consciousness, perception, thought, the mind and the soul. In my paintings I use isolated images such as these because of their ability as symbolic communicators.

"I also have a fixation with the complex beauty of edges. I will often find myself absorbed in the hard edge juxtaposition of collage, quilts, or patchwork of any kind. I find that differentiation (what makes one thing stand out to the next), is fascinating. We tend to record this as outline but something else happens at the edges of things. I think of each color as a vibration against the next. The whole canvas then can be seen as becoming a pattern of frequencies. To understand these properties gives insight about the role they play in our visual memories which aid us in communication. I am sure that there are combinations of shape and color that can move us and alter our moods and feelings. Exploring these combinations, to me, is the art of painting.

"The works seen here are from an ongoing series in which I emphasize images of heads, found in abstraction, by defining the colored space around them (1-11 by row top to bottom). As well I have chosen five unrelated pieces (12-16) from a group of work that has arisen out of my concerns regarding the political state of this country. In the last five years I, like many, have become increasingly alarmed at the constitutional crisis our nation is in. I cannot help but reflect and react to this issue. This has formed an 'inconsistency' in my body of work which I see as a reflection of the disruption and uncertainty we currently face."

www.rodneyartiles.com
www.joycegordongallery.com


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"Untitled
(Homage to Kurt Schwitters)"

 


"Old Man Time"

 


"Night and Day"

 


"A Throw of the Dice-A Shipwreck
(for Mallarmé)"

 


"A Boy and His Goat"

 


"Solar New Year"

 


"Fin de Partie"

 


"Some Things are Never Taught"

 


"The Cameo and the Hidden Solution"

 


"Why Oil?"

 


"Surprise Attack"

 


"Uprising (souldance)"

 


"9/11/01 Terror/Panic"

 


"Are You Threatening Me?"

 


"Beyond the Window
Yawns the Wilderness of War"

 


"Example of a Substandard Revolt"