Sarah M. Rodriguez
Sarah M. Rodriguez’s aluminum sculptures are made of individual casts of organic materials like branches, seed pods, bones, and shells. The organic materials are sourced from her hikes around her studio in Ojo Caliente, New Mexico. She also uses organic material sent to her by her family in Hawai’i. She says, "Half of my family is Native Hawaiian (Ka naka Maoli) and the other half were European settlers who moved to Texas.” Her currently family lives in Hawai’i, right in between one of the oldest ranches in the US, H and Mauna Kea, a colonial and ancestral site. Many of the forms of her works are inspired by these landscapes.
Many of Rodriguez's sculptures, include casts of animal bones, which are commonly found both in both the New Mexico and Hawaii landscape. Both places are the site of a lot of cattle ranching. Rodriguez says, "I'm committed to the experience of art as nonverbal, as an exercise in knowing that the current order of things is not necessary or preordained. We are always becoming done and redone.”
After casting, Rodriguez welds and machine-cuts the individual components to create an overall, balanced form. For her the forms emerge intuitively. Both the weld-joints and machine-cuts are visible in the final forms of the sculptures. During the casting process, Rodriguez doesn't try to fully control the aluminum--as an animal trainer, she says, “just because we can train an animal to do something, doesn’t mean we should.”
"Living in places with asymmetrical relations of power takes negotiation. So I’ve always tried to work by addition and subtraction. Addition suggests assemblage, a formal strategy I try to make use of.” Although the original organic materials are destroyed during the casting process, the resulting aluminum sculpture is, in the end, the only proof of their existence. These aluminum sculptures don't just memorialize these individual objects: they echo the symbiotic forms of a mutable landscape.
Sarah M. Rodriguez, Tree Base, 2024. Cast, carved, and welded aluminum. 41 x 28 x 30 inches.
Sarah M. Rodriguez, Ground Aura, 2024. Cast, carved, and welded aluminum. 28 x 24 x 20 inches.
Sarah M Rodriguez, Cup of Everything, Germ of Nothing, 2024. Cast, carved and welded aluminum. 28 x 32 x 26 inches.
Sarah M. Rodriguez, Polarization, 2024. Cast, carved, and welded aluminum. 28 x 24 x 20 inches.
Exhibitions
Born in Honolulu, HI
Lives and works in Ojo Caliente, NM
PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
Whitney Museum of American Art Library, New York, NY
EDUCATION
2014 MFA in New Genres, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
2010 Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
2008 BFA with High Distinction, Photography, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
2002 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
SOLO & TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2024 "Athena LaTocha/Sarah M. Rodriguez," Babst Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2023 "Field, The Valley," Taos, NM
2023 "Compression Index," Tara Downs Gallery, New York, NY
2019 "Mud," Garden, Los Angeles, CA
2016 "Lock-Up International," Istanbul, Turkey
2016 "Digestion Songs," Species, Atlanta, GA
2015 "Plots," Cudayh, Los Angeles, CA
2014 "Utopian Doghouse," Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles, CA
2013 "Any Peak Will Do," Important Projects, Oakland, CA
2010 "Prehistoric Future," Sight School, Oakland, CA
2008 "Garwood," Queens Nails Annex, San Francisco, CA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 "Aron John Dubois, Sophia Heymans, Amelia Lockwood, Sarah M. Rodriguez, Noah Schneiderman, & Zoë Stiler," The Valley, Santa Fe, NM
2024 "gut flora," April April, Brooklyn, NY
2024 "The Return of Histoire Naturelle," Chez Max et Dorothea, Los Angeles, CA
2024 "Hiss," curated by Margaret Berman, Los Angeles, CA
2024 "Gut Flora," curated by Margaret Kross, April April, Brooklyn, NY
2024 "Greener Than Grass and Almost Dead," Klaus Gallery, New York, New York
2023 "Forest Spirit," The Valley, Taos, NM
2023 "a place above the water," co-curated by Maida Branch, The Valley, Taos, NM
2022 "Burning The Wheel of The Year," curated by Species ATL, Hi-Lo Press & Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2022 "XX Perfect Souls, Bad Water," Knoxville, TN
2021 "Bloom," Paul Soto, Los Angeles, CA
2021-2025 "UCR Icons and Art," curated by Corinna Peipon, UC Riverside, Riverside, CA,
2021 "Making Waves: Ocean Ecology and Craft," Craft in America, Los Angeles, CA
2021 "Le Hangar," La Maison Rendez-Vous, Brussels, Belgium
2018 "Ecoshamanism," Leroy's, Los Angeles, CA
2018 "Challenger Deep," Garden, Los Angeles, CA
2017 "Sea Sick in Paradise," DEPART Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
2017 "Significant Otherness," Angels Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro, CA
2017 "Overview," Samuel Gallery, Chicago, IL
2017 "CD SM KSS," Redling Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
2017 "The Butter Box," Falcon's Nest, Los Angeles, CA
2017 "Valegro," Mills College, Oakland, CA
2016 "Summer Sculpture Show," NowSpace, Los Angeles, CA
2015 "Sarah Two," Hester Gallery, New York, NY
2015 "Damaged, Broken and Rejected," The Dump, Los Angeles, CA
2014 "Slick Livin’," Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
2014 "EXOcise," Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles, CA
2014 "Art MFA Exhibition #1," New Wight Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
2014 "Women in Photography," Contact, Los Angeles, CA
2012 "Friends of Barry," Paule Anglim Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2011 "An Exchange with Sol Le Witt," Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art , North Adams, MA
2011 "Material Matters," As Is Exhibitions, Oakland, CA
2010 "There’s a Way in Which...," Playspace Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 "SK10," Tompkins Projects, Brooklyn, NY
2010 "The Secret Welcome of Space and Its Prehistoric Future," Sight School, Oakland, CA
2009 "Task," Curated by Oliver Herring, Folsom Projects, San Francisco, CA
2009 "One to Many," Partisan Gallery, San Francisco, CA
RESIDENCIES & AWARDS
2016 Shandaken Residency
2014 Resnick Scholarship