Check Out Louis Rodriguez’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Louis Rodriguez.

Hi Louis, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Cuba after the 1959 Cuban revolution. My parents and I, we all came from Banes. Banes is a municipality and city in the Holguín Province of Cuba. Within those early years my parents spoke to each other and the surrounding family members about leaving Cuba and migrating to the United States. I can’t speak for my parents, who are both dead but I’m sure they saw a new reality and a new better future for the family in America. And I think those thoughts became a lot more serious after the 1959 Cuban revolution and Fidel Castro.

At that time, my father was a seasonal laborer in Cuba for the United Fruit company chopping sugar cane in the fields every year in harvest. Today known as Chiquita Brands International, the United Fruit Company was established in New Jersey in 1899.

United Fruit Co. original idea was to harvest bananas in Cuba for which they acquired some 280,000 acres of land. When they realized in 1900 that the land was not suitable to growing bananas, they conceived the idea of harvesting sugarcane instead. In order to process the sugarcane harvested, the company built its first sugar mill and began the production of sugar.

In many ways, I will always have the experience of travel stirring inside of me even though I was only six years of age when we arrived in Florida. Even the experience of the 747 airplanes was memorable to me and had in some ways nudged me the way I visualize science and technology these days… through the eyes of that Cuban boy riding on a perfect unflawed flying machine at night. I still remember seeing the city and airport lights from the window of the airplane. I told my friend in Cuba as a little innocent boy that when I was up in the air in the airplane, I was going to open the airplane window and throw the special marble he gave me back to him. So we left for the Us. In 1969 landed in Florida and finally settled for a short period in West New York until my father found work in NJ.

Ironically, where The United Fruit Company had it’s headquarters initially. Our final settlement was Passaic, NJ. Passaic was a poor multi-cultural town and the Cubans had their small community on Madison St in the early years of me growing up as a young boy in a new world country.

My parents often visited West New York off of Bergenline ave, which was predominantly a Cuban community back in the 70s. We had family living there. I for the most part, I had a normal childhood in the early years growing up in Passaic, NJ. You could say an all-American life doing what street kids did at the time… ride their bikes, play marbles, play tops, play with their baseball cards, play baseball and so on. I played baseball and football in a little leagues… Ever since I could remember I was always drawing everything I saw from cartoons to comic books to superheroes… And it began to take a life of its own without purposeful direction except driven through a curiosity of my surroundings.

It was in high school that I really started taking an interest in painting and drawing on a more serious level. Still yet not really understanding what a career in art was or looked like. I just new that when I painted or drew, I felt a part of my spirit growing and understanding the world that I was living in. Even though I knew both of my parents loved me and wanted the best for me, they never gave me true direction vocationally and in life. They were really good to me though. They tried to give me everything I asked for as a little boy money permitting. We were not rich but they tried. They were two hard working Cubans working in factories trying to make ends meet.

My mother worked in job as a factory worker for over 23 years and retired. My father floated from job to job at times because of his temper even though he was a very intelligent man, his temper always got the best of him made him that way?

Perhaps those years in Cuba and before that my childhood was a happy one. Growing up in Passaic NJ gave me a chance to really understand the black community and African Americans or more importantly people of that era generally… I went to schools where black were the majority.

At the age of nine I was attending black neighborhood block parties to the music of the Ohio Players, The Brothers Johnson and so on. When my best friend moved to Garfield NJ, I was about 16, I began to really be introduced to rock from Zeppelin and Kiss to Aerosmith and ACDC and so on. My experience with culture I believe has been a blessing in my life more so than money and materials things and it has defined who I am today as an artist and as a human being. To this day I still write continuously and have a big curiosity and interest in the universe we live including/within the people I paint.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I believe the biggest struggle I had was finding my way, my identity as a Cuban/American. I was living in two worlds at the time in my youth… I was living as an American boy and young man when I was out in the world and as a Cuban boy/young man when I was home with my Spanish speaking parents.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a contemporary artist that paints figuratively. Mostly all of my work in done in oil paints. At some point roughly about seven years ago, after working digitally for years, I found myself wanting to return back in part to the traditional side of the art world. And so I began experimenting with oil paint again creating landscapes, traditional portraits, etc…

However, little by little, there was something inside of me that needed more than just landscapes and portraiture I wanted to take it to another level. And so “Experiments through Color Geometries and The Human Element” series is the inception journey of something that I’m very happy with and its ongoing direction. Apart from the texture and color, the art and narrative is minimalistic. And the minimal titles of the paintings are intended to reflect the minimal style of the work. All of the paintings are just one-word names. Like ‘Felicity’, ‘Denizen’, ‘Euphoria’ etc…

My intention is to try and not complicate the paintings or titles and to try and keep a certain unity as a whole with all of the elements including the title names. Whether it is through the subtle tension of the staring eyes, or the dialogue of a single figure within its environment, My mission in part is to create a welcoming relationship with the viewer.

I welcome and challenge the viewer to try and see things in their own fashion and perspective. One can take two directions in studying my art… toy can view my art in a formal way and enjoy the colors and textures or you can dive deeper and see my culture, my spirit and everything in-between that is truly me.

When I use color, I use it as though I have lived in it for a lifetime. It guides my decision on the mood I will have that day in my approach when I begin my painting session. I’ve grown to find out and realize that color teaches me personally about life, people, and culture, my past and present state and where I’m going tomorrow. I truly mean this when I say this that not only do I see color, I feel it through me. If you really think about it… where would we be without color? Its an essential part of our daily lives. Its in clothes, Its in food, its in homes and cars etc…

I want to realize my paintings being physically present as hanging sculptures with texture playing a role that you can see, touch and feel, with slopes, crevasse and valleys throughout the surface and at times throughout the sides of the artwork. My paintings foundationally can be described as contemporary portraits that tell a story in silence. And so I believe that when you add that three dimensional texture element to the paintings, it really brings the viewer closer to the spirit of the subject within the artwork. They are not only looking at a painterly portrayal of a figure but rather a tangible subject that is reaching out to you in thick layers of color and paint.

I love music and listen to it mostly every time I paint. It transports me to the world I’m trying to capture in my paintings. Art and music complement each other like a perfect marriage in harmony within my creative universe. My collaboration with music is a fundamental backdrop to my journey in my painting sessions. The particular art work I’m working on that day inspires the music I will listen to. In my in-between breaks from painting, I will pick up my guitar and jam a little to regain freshness and perspective.

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
The first thing I will say is this… You have to ask yourself at some point as a new or young creative… What do I want out of art? (or for that matter any other type of creative discipline as well.) And what does art want out of me? If its to be just a hobby then great! However if you want more than that, you have to ask yourself deeper honest questions…

How much passion do I really have in what I’m trying to achieve in this journey that I’ve decided to place myself in?
Do I love it enough to sacrifice certain things in my life that I spend too much time on in order to achieve greatness?
Am I willing to work tirelessly to achieve my goals and professional quality in my craft?

If your answer to these questions is yes, yes and yes… in time you will shine and stand out. Things will begin to fall into place as a creative and people including potential mentors will find you. Another important aspect is organization and treating it as a business. One can never do too much marketing.

Contact Info:

• Email: artisticFinest@yahoo.com
• Website: www.LouisContemporaryArt.com

Image Credits
Louis Rodriguez copyright 2021