René Serrano Rodriguez Blog

Medicine Woman *DJ20241030   106 X 81 cm (42 X 32 inches) Mixed media / Canvas 2024   Artwork acquired by The Mexican Tax Administration Service MX Catalog: 0007_2024 MN The Medicine Woman painting series begins with a personal fascination with the face of my friend Alejandra, a gifted artist and photographer from my hometown of Morelia, Mexico.  Part of the  Punk Baroque painting series  this series blends elements of street art with surrealism, Art Nouveau, portraiture, and figurative imagery. Each portrait is rendered in sepia tones, while hypothetical icons embedded in the compositions evoke both real and imagined memories. Situated between biography and mass-produced imagery, the project examines how the figure of “the subject” is constructed and how identity is mediated through memory, repetition, and visual language. A medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves Indigenous communities of the Americas. Each culture has its own n...

Mar I.A. *M20260110 Mixed media / Canvas 120 X 80 cm (47 X 31 In) 2026 In an era when artificial intelligence generates representations of our most uninhibited “prompts” at unimaginable speeds, I present this series of paintings, part of the Punk Baroque painting series   which— without my realizing it at the time —I had already begun in 1998. That year, I produced a portrait of my school friend Marie as part of an analog photography laboratory course. This image now serves as the point of departure for a new body of work, reconfigured into painterly compositions and interwoven with figures, hairstyles, clothing, and other motifs drawn from diverse art-historical movements. Copied again and again, the facial features drawn from the same photographic source inevitably change with each human “print.” Through this process, the work pays homage to the academy as an institution, while simultaneously integrating elements from my own personal history. The academic tradition and the autobi...

The Endless River Project is a series of four large-scale paintings that explore the current environmental condition of Lake Pátzcuaro , which has been severely affected by recurring droughts in recent years. The project was supported by a grant from my country’s Ministry of Culture, through the Established Artists Program in Michoacán—an important validation of my artistic practice. The project was originally titled Antes de que nos olviden (“Before We Are Forgotten”), but I later chose a title that felt more universal and more deeply connected to the symbolism of the Day of the Dead . The final title of the project is The Endless River Project . The series is inspired by the flora of Lake Pátzcuaro—also known as Uranden—the setting of Michoacán’s traditional Night of the Dead celebrations. This ritual has fascinated me since childhood. Its significance in my personal life is such that my wife and I were married on November 2, crossing the lake by boat that night in the midst of a ...