Estefania Velez Rodriguez, "Untitled (red and orange plants)"

Estefania Velez Rodriguez uses the symbolic language of painting as a bridge between disparate cultures and spaces. The ambiguous shapes inhabiting her paintings suggest something familiar, yet indescribable, like a distant memory. In Untitled (red and orange plants) the curving forms of oranges, pinks, and reds suggest flower petals and blossoms, jumping to life against the gridded green and blue backdrop. Corriente transports us through the blurred and blended shapes that reminds us of a landscape we both know but can’t define. Rodriguez began the work Corriente while at the Ucross residency in Wyoming, shortly after her residency at Hidrante in her native Puerto Rico, and completed the work in her Brooklyn studio. The luminous greens and deep blues form a luscious merger of all three places to nowhere at all. 

Estefanía Vélez Rodríguez (b. 1985, Mayagüez, PR) is a Puerto Rican artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Estefania received her MFA in Painting from Brooklyn College in 2017. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute, as well as an Adjunct Professor at Rutgers University (Newark), Brooklyn College, and Montclair State University. Some notable exhibitions include: Praxis Gallery (NYC), Underdonk (NYC), Fordham University (NYC), Below Grand (NYC), Soil Gallery (Seattle), University of Arkansas (AK), Auxiliary Projects (NYC), Cunsthaus (Tampa), Vermont Studio Center (VT), and Art Fair Miami (FL). Her work has been published with The Brooklyn Rail (NY), Artnet (NY), Centro Puerto Rico (NYC and PR), and Revista Marvin in Mexico City (CDMX). She has participated in residencies with Vermont Studio Center (VT), Goldey House (NY), Hidrante (PR), and UCROSS (WY). She has been interviewed by podcasts Art As Form, and Tom Ray. She has a public mural project with the Arts and Cultural Grant of New York and Norte Maar organization (2022), and is a recipient of a NYFA artist grant (2020).