Rodrigo Chapa: Episodios

September 8 - 30, 2022

ANENT presents “Episodios”, a solo exhibition by Mexican photographer Rodrigo Chapa. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York City. “Episodios” consists of a selection of photographs from his main series, “Ausentes, Caída Libreand Episodios”. Chapa’s work is inspired by the phenomenology of color, producing scenarios to explore the limits of its psychological and spiritual implications. In his artistic practice, he mainly explores the medium of photography, relying on the pictorial tradition as an environmental resource to build an image.

In “Ausentes” and “Caída libre”, Chapa uses the main characteristics of the pictorial movement abstract expressionism, such as color fields, and large formats in which to submerge the bodies. Inspired byMark Rothko and Barnett Newman paintings, in “Ausentes”, Chapa uses the color field as a context in relation to an abstracted human body that shows, but at the same time hides or protects, itself. Each image is carefully thought out, pairing the camera formats with grid systems, and the relationship between the human body and color fields. In Caída Libre, we see the color field as a context in relation to a descending human body. It aims to evoke vertigo, the compositions are resolved by chance and the spontaneity of the fall of the body, submerged in a monochromatic blue field that refers to the vastness of the sea and the sky.

His third body of work was developed during the-coronavirus pandemic, Episodiosis a series that aims to investigate color, shape and composition, using only objects that are at the hand in the studio: tools and photographic equipment, along with elements from previous productions. The result is a juxtaposition of things that in a different situation would not coexist.

Rodrigo Chapais based in Mexico City. His works has been exhibited at"Ausentes", Art Base (BuenosAires, 2020); "Ausentes", PARC (Peru, 2020); "Dawns", Leun'Un (Monterrey, 2019); "Unframed",ANENT Gallery (Brooklyn, 2019); "Ausentes", FAMA (Monterrey, 2019); "Mexico Vivo", Museo deArte Moderno (Mexico City, 2018); "Manos", Batur (Monterrey, 2014); "Many Moons",andSpeos(Paris, 2013).