Jarol Rodríguez is a simple young man; he speaks eloquently and passionately about his dreams and is always working on some project. Perhaps because of this reason, and because talent and dedication are usually the perfect marriage, he has been noticed for some time now by his contemporaries for the maturity of his work.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- His results are also backed up by some important awards, such as being a finalist in the Post-it 9 edition and winner of the La Temporal 2022 scholarship, awarded by the Center for the Development of Visual Arts, in Havana.
His most recent exhibition, Lluvias de ayer y de hoy (Rains of Yesterday and Today), shown at the gallery of the Provincial Committee of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), is striking for its aesthetic quality, conceptual values, and presentation of the message, among other elements.
"The exhibition has a retrospective feel to it. It is like the rain that I mentioned in the title, which flows and always has an effect, even though it returns repeatedly. Three series are glimpsed in this exhibition: Maneras de Inventar una Sonrisa, Nada Personal, and El Oficio de Permanecer con Vida.
"The first series is about primates; ironically, the second is about people close to me, whom I portrayed in different situations; and in the third, which won me the grant, I use cacti as metaphors for existence, for adapting despite the difficulties. Although my interests have changed, I have always maintained that line: the man who lives in a state of conflict, but looks for a way to survive and move forward.”
The human being, thus, becomes the center of his work and color becomes the protagonist to express his intentions. "I attach great importance to colors because, within their psychological functions, they transmit ideas and activate the senses," he adds.
Jarol graduated from the Professional Academy of Plastic Arts in Las Tunas, in 2009, and from Graphic Design at the Cuban Association of Social Communicators. Since then, he has done nothing but create, even though he is not one of the most media-friendly artists.
The El Cucalambé Ibero-American Center of the Décima, in this city, hosted his first personal exhibition under the title Piel Adentro, a sample of exquisitely crafted portraits. Now, he surprised with Lluvias de ayer y de hoy, a sort of collage of different stages of his creation, where already known works such as La Duda (2008), which speaks through gorillas, and Jardín de Travesuras (2018), dedicated to his young daughters, appear with other more recent ones such as Nomenclatura (2022), inspired by cacti.
This is how art critic Dailin Carracedo Velázquez sums it up: "... an interesting proposal, like the aloe of plants. He would not be the first painter to highlight nature to send us intrinsic messages that reveal human nature (...) and you, the viewer, will realize that the artist maintains the same message even if you see differences in the person portrayed. It is called evolution and development..."
Rains of yesterday and today, an exhibition to "get wet" with good art. This young man, of Christian belief, without worrying too much about mercantile seductions, makes his verse the following: "He will give the rain of your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, and you shall gather in your grain, your win, and your oil" (Deuteronomy 11: 14).
