Meet Rodrigo Mateo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rodrigo Mateo.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was Born in Argentina and spent my youth there. I was encouraged to draw from an early age and had a fascination with comic books. I would spend hours copying from them and dreamed of someday creating my own graphic novels.

I moved to the United States as a young teenager and attended High school and college in Upstate New York.
My love for comic books remained strong but as I grew older, my passion for film grew. I saw film making as the greatest tool for story telling as it combined sound and image and writing. I toyed briefly with the idea of film making, but I found the actual work too technical and detached. I felt disillusioned and missed the material and physical qualities of drawing. On a whim I attended a painting class during my third year of college and I was surprised that I actually liked it. The history of painting, the smells, the paints, I enjoyed it all. I loved the fact that the tools and materials were the same they had been before and after Rembrandt or Caravaggio’s time. I liked that the “software” or “Hardware” did not need to be updated every few months, it felt very human.

That was the first time I seriously considered becoming a painter. However, the more I delved into the fine arts world I found it leaned heavily on concept and not enough on technique. I tried on my own to figure things out; i.e. how to draw what’s in front of you, how to create the illusion of depth, how to mix colors. In short, how to make things look like things. The books I read and my professors could not help. I came to the conclusion that only a genius could paint realistically.

I spent a few years after college toying with working in film and photography but painting was always in the back of my mind. Randomly in a bookstore I picked up a book on contemporary painting that had a resources page. It mentioned a small painting studio in New York with work that was extremely technically competent. At the time I lived about an hour away from the city and I viewed that as providence. I contacted them, met them, applied, and in the spring of 2009 found myself attending the Grand Central Atelier in New York City. The school was founded by the painter Jacob Collins and was run by him and his graduated students. It had the air of an old renaissance studio, and the students where extremely talented and ambitious. My formative years as a painter where spent at Grand Central, and since then I have been working hard at improving my craft and striving to give life to my personal vision.

Please tell us about your art.
I look at art in order to feel a heightened sense of reality and connection to life. I think paintings have this counter cultural power to influence us in ways that are not so common in today’s age. A painting may be hanging on the wall and you pass it every day, paying little attention to it. Meanwhile though this thing has been having a subtle effect on you, whispering its power. One day you finally notice it on the way out the door and cannot imagine not living with it. You notice it has been talking to you this whole time, influencing you. That is what I seek in my painting, to express something of life we all share. A quiet contemplation of matter, of feeling, of that beautiful silence of life, that is full of energy. That does not mean paintings cannot be powerful and full of movement. Many painters from the past explored that side of it as well. It just helps to convey the power of paintings versatility of expression.

Light for me is something I think about a lot, how it falls on form, how it chooses to obscure or reveal things. the color of it and the mood it creates. I guess I can thank that to both my father and grandfather, which both where directors of photography in film. I also see painting as a way to communicate across time and learn about what makes us human. Looking at Rembrandt for example, you can get into the mind of a 17th century man that lived in Holland. He left traces of himself though his art that still resonates with us today. Him sharing of his humanity helps us today to connect to ours.

Given everything that is going on in the world today, do you think the role of artists has changed? How do local, national or international events and issues affect your art?
I tend to think of art in a more timeless manner. I think art that comes too close to current fashions and events is bound to lose a bit of its power as it ages and trends and tastes change. I strive for an art that can hopefully have something in it that will make it easier for someone in fifty a hundred or five hundred years to feel connected to and can identify with. I believe there is something in all of us that seeks and desires that

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
In Massachusetts:

I am currently showing at Williams Fine Art Dealers at 300 Main St, Wenham, MA 01984. and Collins Gallery 12 West Road, Orleans, Cape Cod, MA 02653. in Connecticut: at Cooper & Smith Gallery. 10 Main St, Essex, CT 06426

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rodrigomateo.com
• Email: rodrigomateopaintings@gmail.com
• Instagram: rodrigomateoart

Image Credit:
Rodrigo Mateo

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