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Artemio Rodriguez Launches Watkins Visiting Artist Series

Presented by Watkins College of Art, Design & Film at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film

November 17, 2011

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Renowned Mexican printmaker Artemio Rodriguez will kick off Watkins College of Art, Design & Film's expanded Visiting Artists Series with a reception and lecture on Thursday, November 17, beginning at 6 pm. The event is free and open to the public.
The Watkins Visiting Artists Series is an annual year-long program which welcomes nationally and internationally recognized fine artists, designers, filmmakers, educators and critics to the campus and the community. Through the generous support of the Memorial Foundation, this year’s series builds upon last year's 125th anniversary series of three lectures by presenting four lectures in the Watkins Theater plus an exhibition in the Brownlee O. Currey, Jr. Gallery.

Artemio Rodriguez was born in Tacámbaro, Michoacán, Mexico, and studied agronomy at the Universidad Autonomo Chapingo. He was introduced to art when he apprenticed and learned letterpress printing from Juan Pasco, a master print maker working out of the Taller Martín Pescador near Rodriguez’s hometown. As a printmaker who works primarily in black and white, Rodriguez’s signature style emphasizes simplicity and clarity. European medieval woodcuts and the great Mexican print artists such as Jose Guadalupe Posada have been influential in Rodriguez’s printmaking career. Though comfortable working in a wide variety of artistic media -- he has departed at times from paper to apply his imagery on cars and even skateboards -- Rodriguez regards his ten years as a printmaker as the beginning of a long quest. His larger goal is to keep exploring and promoting printmaking until he feels he has contributed something important to the medium. He fully expects this to take a lifetime. In 2002 he founded La Mano Press in Los Angeles, an artist-run center dedicated to the promotion and appreciation of printmaking. Rodriguez’s work has been featured in galleries in the United States and Mexico, and he has illustrated and published several books. After living in Los Angeles for many years, Rodriguez recently relocated back to his hometown in Mexico.

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Additional offerings in the Thursday night series are:

• January 26, 2012 – Natalia Almada, filmmaker


• February 9, 2012 – David Hilliard, photographer, in conjunction with Visiting Artist’s Exhibition


• March 29, 2012 – Harrell Fletcher, interdisciplinary artist


• April 26, 2012 – Alec Soth, photographer

Updates to specific times and programming for each artist’s visit will be posted to the Watkins website (Watkins.edu/VisitingArtistsSeries).