…I’ve noticed that most artists only repeat themselves.
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)

I see art as the ultimate form of freedom. From the beginning, my artistic and intellectual curiosity has pushed me to explore different subjects, techniques, styles and materials. I’ve been working as an artist for over 40 years, and I still need to explore new territories and possibilities with my art. After I finished my commission for NYC’s Flight 587 Memorial in 2006, I started doing a series of work on birch plywood that took me in a new direction. Breaking with my own tradition, I made no sketches and I did no research beforehand. I just wanted to paint. I called these new works “De la nada a la nada: Painting about nothing.” These works both created a different set of painting problems, and opened a new door of artistic possibilities. That’s what I find exciting about art. I made openings in the plywood, made straight cuts into it, painted on both sides of the panels and used two different abstract styles. I also made folding screens that I can make into labyrinths of colors. I used a hairdryer to push the paint around and create texture. After the hairdryer broke in 2009, I started using an air compressor to push the paint around. This created another new set of technical problems, which I finally mastered after many trials. The way the colors mix when using the air compressor is very different from how they mix using other tools such as brushes, spatula, hairdryer, sticks, and my hands . I’m very excited about the results, and I invite you to take a tour of this work and all my other past work. Welcome to my art world.

Freddy Rodríguez is a New York based artist working independently.