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. He is a Cuban born American illustrator/artist and children's book author. He 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. While a student at Pratt, the artist interned at Spy Magazine, MTV and Penguin Books.[4] 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.[5]

In 1991, Rodriguez met Jennifer Roth, and the two would become married in 1997.[6]

Work

In 1994 Rodriguez began work as an Art Director for Time magazine. At 26 years of age, the artist was the youngest art director to ever work on the Time's Canadian and Latin American editions.[4] 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.[5] Rodriguez' work also appears regularly on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times.[7]

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

Artistic Approach

Rodriguez believes that illustrations have the ability to influence and inspire people in a way that words can not, because they can tell a complicated story in a simple way.[8]

In the News

For the 2015 February 8 issue of Newsweek Magazine, the cover story by Nina Burleigh was illustrated by Rodriguez.[9] The cover image, portraying a woman with her skirt being lifted up by a computer cursor created controversy,[10] with some calling it a faceless and sexualized symbol of women.[11] The cover image also created what NBC News described as a "firestorm" on Twitter, after the website Jezebel derided the illustration.[12] Others considered the cover image appropriate to the subject matter of the article.[13] Burleigh, the author of the article on which the illustration was based described the critical comments as petty.[14] On PBS, the artist defended the work saying "it’s not sexist, it depicts the ugliness of sexism".[15]

For the 2016 August 22 issue of Time Magazine, editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs focused their cover on Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaign, with the cover title Meltdown and DW Pine commissioned Rodriguez for the cover illustration.[16][17] The cover appeared on various news broadcasts, including PBS and MSNBC , as well as generating news coverage in such magazines and newspapers as The Washington Post[18] and People Magazine[19]

For the February 4, 2017 issue of Der Spiegel, the artists cover image depicting President Donald Trump holding the Statue of Liberty's severed head in one hand and a knife in the other, with the cover title America First generated news coverage in such publications as The Washington Post,[20] The Guardian,[21] Newsweek[22] and other news outlets. The cover image was described as tasteless by vice-president of the European Parliament, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff[23] and defended by Der Spiegel editor-in-chief Klaus Brinkbaeumer, who commented that he was surprised by the impact of the illustration.[21]

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". Archived from the original on October 22, 2013. 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 "Edel Rodriguez". AIGA, the professional association for design. AIGA. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
  5. 1 2 "Illoz Biography". Retrieved 2013-04-13.
  6. ↑ Heller, Steven; Fernandes, Teresa (2010). Becoming a Graphic Designer. John Wiley & Sons. p. 275.
  7. ↑ Kraus, Jerelle (2012). All The Art That's Fit To Print. Columbia University Press. p. 237.
  8. ↑ Frank, Priscilla. "Anti-Trump Illustrator Is A Cuban Immigrant Who Knows What A Dictator Looks Like". Huffington Post. The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-02-10.
  9. ↑ "Newsweek Feb 8 2015 issue". Newsweek. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  10. ↑ Sklar, Rachelle. "Sexism still alive and well in Silicon Valley (and on Newsweek cover)". Today. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  11. ↑ Tsotsis, Alexia. "What (Some) Silicon Valley Women Think Of Newsweek". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  12. ↑ Bhattacharjee, Riya. ""Ugh! That Newsweek Cover": Silicon Valley Women Respond". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  13. ↑ Alba, Alejandro. "Newsweek's cover story about sexism in Silicon Valley sparks controversyNewsweek's cover story about sexism in Silicon Valley sparks controversy". New York Daily News. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  14. ↑ Brekke, Kira. "Newsweek Correspondent: Outrage Over Latest February Cover Is ‘Petty’". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  15. ↑ Tam, Ruth. "Artist behind Newsweek cover". PBS Newshour. PBS. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  16. ↑ "Meltdown". Time Magazine. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  17. ↑ Welton, Casey. "The Cover Story: Time Captures Trump’s Meltdown". min. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  18. ↑ Borchers, Callum. "Donald Trump should hate this Time magazine cover, but he’ll probably hang it in his office". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  19. ↑ McAfee, Tierney. "Inside Trump's Meltdown". People Magazine. Retrieved 2016-10-03.
  20. ↑ Borchers, Callum. "This Der Spiegel Trump cover is stunning". Washing Post. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-02-05.
  21. 1 2 "German magazine defends cover of Trump beheading Statue of Liberty". The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved 2017-02-04.
  22. ↑ "Der Spiegel: Trump Beheading Cover Aabout 'Defending Democracy'". Newsweek. Rueters. Retrieved 2017-02-05.
  23. ↑ "Der Spiegel: Trump beheading cover sparks criticism". BBC News. BBC News. Retrieved 2017-02-05.
  24. 1 2 3 "Edel Rodriguez's theater posters". April 1, 2008.
  25. 1 2 3 "Theatre Posters by Edel Rodriguez". April 8, 2009. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014.
  26. ↑ "Curly Tale Fine Art".
  27. ↑ "Gallery Nucleus". February 20, 2010.
  28. ↑ Amid Capeci (December 8, 2008). "Society of Publication Designers".
  29. ↑ "Society of Illustrators Annual Awards". Retrieved 2013-05-11.
  30. ↑ "Art Directors Club Annual Awards". Retrieved 2013-05-11.
  31. ↑ "American Society of Magazine Editors". Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  32. ↑ "The Most Creative People of the Year". AdAge. Advertising Age. Retrieved 2016-12-20.
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