Hashimoto Contemporary is delighted to present Piedra del Sol, a solo exhibition featuring new paintings and sketches by artist Carlos Rodriguez at Zona Maco. This marks the artist’s inaugural solo presentation with Hashimoto Contemporary and his premier solo booth at the esteemed art fair.
In Aztec and Mayan cosmology, humans appeared in various forms before assuming their current earthly existence. According to the Maya, humans initially emerged as clay beings, then transformed into wood, and ultimately evolved from white and yellow corn; the Aztecs envisioned humans as giants during the first era of the world. As a child, artist Carlos Rodriguez heard renditions of these legends from his father during family drives to his grandmother’s Ranchito in northern Mexico. In his latest body of work, Piedra del Sol, the artist reinterprets his native Mexico through the eyes of his ancestors—those who shared the stories reflected in these paintings and drawings, as well as the Mexican artists who portrayed the land before him. Several ancient myths referenced by Rodriguez involve tragic love tales, where lovers are separated or transformed by supernatural forces, often succumbing to grief. However, the figures in his paintings don’t appear to lament their fates; instead, their serene facial expressions suggest a tranquil acceptance, even as the era of their world approaches its closure.
The giants depicted in Rodriguez’s large paintings resemble ancient rocks made smooth by time, their peaks resembling mountain tops, their orifices like canyons. Despite their size and sturdiness, the figures are impossibly light and flexible. They might be found wrapped around another body or tangled within their own; other times they appear in deep thought and repose, floating into the distinctly Mexican topography of barren golden deserts or the burgundy and navy shadows of far off mountains. In three works, the figures tenderly caress the warm, yellow, swirling sun, emphasizing our mythical and literal dependence on this celestial ball of fire, which had been a mystery to Earthly beings for eons.
Characterized by deep reds and blues with yellow and white highlights, the series pays homage to a history of Mexican painters who depicted the world through soft, curvaceous forms and magical imagination. By limiting his palette to red, blue, yellow, white, and black—colors associated with various deities and spiritualities—the painter conveys how opposing dark and light forces have shaped everything around us, leaving spaces of wonder and mystery in our inexplicable existence. Whether in perpetual motion or eternal rest, the large, smooth, sculptural bodies in these paintings remind us that our place in this world is neither accidental nor fixed—we are made of history, inherently unstable and ever-evolving.
Hashimoto Contemporary and Carlos Rodriguez at Zona Maco – Booth B119
Centro Citibanamex Av. del Conscripto 311
Lomas de Sotelo, Miguel Hidalgo
Mexico City, 11200, Mexico
