Edel Rodriguez

Edel Rodriguez
Born (1971-08-22) August 22, 1971
Havana, Cuba, Cuba
Education BFA, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, 1994
MFA, Hunter College, 1998
Known for illustration, fine artist

Edel Rodriguez (born August 22, 1971 in Havana, Cuba) is a Cuban American artist.

Edel Rodriguez is a Cuban born American illustrator/artist and children's book author. Rodriguez uses a variety of materials, his work ranges from conceptual to portraiture and landscape. Socialist propaganda and western advertising, island culture and contemporary city life, are all aspects of his life that inform his work.

Early life and education

Rodriguez arrived in the United States during the Mariel boatlift crisis.

Until the age of 9, Rodriguez lived in the Cuban countryside town of El Gabriel. In an interview conducted by Yuko Shimizu, Rodriguez described his earliest visual influences as military, revolutionary and nationalist imagery.[1] In 1980 Rodriguez emigrated to the United States with his father, Cesareo Rodriguez mother, Coralia Rodriguez and sister Irma as one of the thousands of Cubans who took part in the Mariel boatlift.[2] His family of four arrived in Key West and as the Cuban government had taken possession of the families home, car, furniture and even clothes, the Rodriguez family had little to start a new life with. The family moved in with relatives in Miami, Florida where Edel's father established a trucking business. Within a couple of years of arriving in the United States, Rodriguez had mastered the language to the point that he became a Spelling Bee champion.[3] Rodriguez graduated from Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School in 1990.

After graduation from High School, Rodriguez declined a full scholarship to The University of Miami and instead attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating from Pratt with honors and earning a BFA on a full scholarship in painting. Rodriguez went on to earn a M.F.A. from Hunter College in 1998.[4]

In 1991, Rodriguez met Jennifer Roth, and the two would become married in 1997.[5]

Work

In 1994 Rodriguez began work as an Art Director for Time magazine. He would hold this position until 2008, when he began dedicating all of his time to personal art works and commercial illustration. While working at Time, Rodriguez produced a significant amount of illustration work, the majority of which was done in the evenings.[1] Some of the more memorable commercial works produced during this period were his June 27, 2005 Time magazine cover for China's New Revolution in which Mao Zedong is depicted wearing Louis Vuitton and his May/June 2006 cover for Communication Arts depicting Che Guevara wearing a Nike logo and Apple headphones. The Time cover depicting Mao Zedong was later used in 2009 as the cover for Lürzer’s 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide.

Throughout his career, Rodriguez has utilized a variety of artistic mediums to produce his final works, which vary from very linear, soft and subtle works, to other works that achieve a bolder, more graphic sensibility. Rodriguez applies a combination of mediums including paint, printmaking, pastel, line drawing as well as digital manipulation.[1]

In the course of his career as a commercial illustrator Rodriguez' work has been published by a great number of nationally and internationally distributed magazines such as The New Yorker, Time magazine, Rolling Stone, Fortune Magazine and others. Rodriguez' work has also been used by corporate clients such as MTV, Pepsi Inc and others.[4] Rodriguez' work also appears regularly on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times.<ref name='All The Art That's Fit To Print'>Kraus, Jerelle (2012). All The Art That's Fit To Print. Columbia University Press. p. 237. </ref>

In 2005, the U.S. Postal Service released the Cha-Cha-Cha stamp, illustrated by Rodriguez.[3]

Theatrical posters

Film posters

Book covers

Children's book illustrator

Children's book author and illustrator

Art exhibitions

Awards and honors

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Illustration Friday Interview". Retrieved 2013-04-13.
  2. ↑ "Pippin Properties Biography". Retrieved 2013-04-13.
  3. 1 2 "American Institute of Graphic Arts Biography". Retrieved 2013-04-13.
  4. 1 2 "Illoz Biography". Retrieved 2013-04-13.
  5. ↑ Heller, Steven; Fernandes, Teresa (2010). Becoming a Graphic Designer. John Wiley & Sons. p. 275.
  6. 1 2 3 "Edel Rodriguez’s theater posters". 2008-04-01.
  7. 1 2 3 "Theatre Posters by Edel Rodriguez". 2009-04-08.
  8. ↑ "Curly Tale Fine Art".
  9. ↑ "Gallery Nucleus". 2010-02-20.
  10. ↑ Amid Capeci (2008-12-08). "Society of Publication Designers".
  11. ↑ "Society of Illustrators Annual Awards". Retrieved 2013-05-11.
  12. ↑ "Art Directors Club Annual Awards". Retrieved 2013-05-11.
  13. ↑ "American Society of Magazine Editors". Retrieved 2016-03-17.

External links

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