Tag Archives: Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada

Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada’s Enormous Portraits That Can Be Seen From The Sky

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It’s difficult to overstate how large Jorge Rodriguez-Gerda‘s portraits are.  While much of his work consists of enormous charcoal portraits inhabiting the sides of entire apartment buildings, Rodriguez-Gerada’s Terrestrial Series are best viewed through an airplane window.  The artist typically uses natural materials such as sand and dirt to draw out faces from the earth.  Speaking about the reasons for his portraits’ huge scale he says:

“I am critical of the marketing that has crept into so many facets of our lives. I decided to do work that would counter it by using the same codes used by advertisers such as scale, visibility and eye catching images. I wanted these new iconic images to be huge and placed in strategic places.”

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Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada’s Charcoal Street Art Portraits

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In 2002 Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada moved to Barcelona where he began his ‘Identity Series’. Gerada was drawn to the beauty of old surfaces and wanted to blend photo realistic images of anonymous locals to question the controls imposed in public space, and the use and abuse of iconic faces to sell us products and ideas. He decided to apply the same approaches used by advertising, such as strategic positioning and size, but with the intention of creating a poetic counter commentary that fades away with beauty. The Identity Series is about initiating a dialogue with a local community through art. These portraits transformed local, anonymous residents into social icons, giving relevance to an individual’s contribution to the community and touching upon the legacy that each life has to offer.

Gerada chose charcoal for its transparency and ephemeral quality. He involves the visual narrative of the textured wall instead of covering it. These time-based portraits gradually deteriorate. They become a metaphor of the fading of life, of fame and of the things we first thought were so important. The creation of the “Identity Series” is also an act that is environmentally sound and at the mercy of the natural world. The pieces fade away like the warmth after an embrace. The photo realistic drawing is only an aspect of the piece. The importance of the piece is the whole process of creation, destruction and memory. Watch a video of Gerada in action after the jump.

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Jorge Rodriguez Gerada’s Giant Girl

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Jorge Rodriguez Gerada and the people from the Delta del Ebro region in Spain have joined to form a giant representation of a girl named Gal·la. This installation is meant to bring attention to how future generations will have to pay the price for our inability to act on climate change now.

This piece is one of several major public art installations in over a dozen locations across the planet that will be photographed by satellites 400 miles above the Earth’s surface this November 20-27 as part of a planetary scale art project, 350 EARTH, led by author Bill McKibben and international climate campaign 350.org.

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Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada

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I am really enjoying Cuban artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada’s work.  Each surface he creates a painting on is at least 150 years old!

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