The breathing Island
B E Y O N D T H E H U M A N , E V E R Y L I V I N G B O D Y A L S O T H I N K S
In each of their ways of existence, living beings—both animals and plants—develop semiotic mechanisms that allow them to be part of an ecosystem of signs, communications, and representations that surpass human logic by far. Thus, beneath our line of vision, a universe of species establishes dialogues with each other, forming a whole world that goes beyond the human. A crawling landscape that exists prior to the construction of any idea of society, with dynamics of group organization, sustainable life structures, and respect for other individuals that make us see within them a substrate of thought created in harmony with nature. Attentive to the behaviours of these miniscule yet significant bodies, Venezuelan visual artist Ismael Rodríguez Fernández proposes in his solo exhibition "The Breathing Island" a showcase of thinking, sentient, and relevant forms of life with which he shares memories that have accompanied him since his early experiences in the city of Mérida, Venezuela. These memories are hybridized with the current circumstances of his new habitat in Oxford, England. In this process of migratory adaptation, Ismael Rodríguez takes notes from free entomological observations, where the rigor of analytical drawing blends with a language developed by the artist throughout his prolific career; a syntax of informal figurative and pictorial expressionism that has given rise to landscapes and characters that constitute his own distinctive imagery. In this exhibition of recent works, Ismael's processes—ranging from collage, painting, drawing, to sculpture—accentuate his artistic experimentation by incorporating elements from his current landscape. This landscape is no longer a subject of immobile contemplation but is now understood as a space of immersion, observing not only the traditional visual constructions of an archetypal nature but also experiencing the details considered "minor" by our anthropocentric gaze: the trail of ants, the flutter of a beetle, the patterns of a spider web. In the poetry of these signals from minuscule lives, our artist finds connections between the ground of the places that have been his habitats. Despite the geographical differences inherent to their latitudes, both cities are accompanied by the human daily interactions with the abundant existence of arthropod organisms— scorpions, beetles, dragonflies, and spiders—which are now part of Rodríguez's graphemes. The imaginative comparison of these scenarios allows the artist to identify with the small beings in which he deposits his memories, generating situations in which the intangibility of memory processes submerge into the complexities of biological dynamics. In this way, the memories of the landscapes of the Venezuelan Andean “paramo” merge with the English oceanic nature, generating an imagined ecosystem composed of fleeting beings that relate to and understand within each other. The lives of these insects and animals shape an Island that breathes, an extension of land surrounded by waters and memories whose future is uncertain but also possible. In this self-made territory of reality and imagination, the images created by Ismael Rodríguez transform into signs that, in turn, invite us to think about a living condition, but above all, a condition that goes beyond the human—a way of re-presenting in which the images of the environment become revelations through their details: the flight of a beetle, the footstep of a tapir, the cocoon of a caterpillar. The living island imagined by Ismael thus becomes the representation of an upcoming absence, that of a future in which thoughts matter, and in which all us beings that inhabit it exist harmoniously in the same condition.
Manuel Vasquez Ortega
