Favianna Rodriguez

Favianna Rodriguez is a printmaker new media artist based in Oakland, California. Using high-contrast colors and vivid figures, her composites reflect literal and imaginative migration, global community, and interdependence. Whether her subjects are immigrant youth in the U.S., mothers of disappeared women in Juárez, Mexico, or her own abstract self portraits, Rodriguez brings new audiences into the art world by refocusing the cultural lens. Through her work we witness the changing U.S. metropolis and a new diaspora in the arts.

Hailed as “visionary” and “ubiquitous,” Rodriguez is renowned for her vibrant posters dealing with issues such as war, immigration, globalization, and social movements. By creating lasting popular symbols — where each work is the multiplicand and its location the multiplier — her work interposes private and public space, as the art viewer becomes the participant carrying art beyond the borders of the museum.

Rodriguez has lectured widely on the use of art and technology in civic engagement and the work of artists who, like herself, are bridging the community and museum, the local and international. She is co-editor of Reproduce and Revolt! an unprecedented contribution to the Creative Commons which contains more than 600 bold, high-quality black and white illustrations for royalty-free creative use. In 2009, Rodriguez co-founded Presente.org, a national online organizing network dedicated to the political empowerment of Latino communities.

In 2010, the global prize, Freedom To Create, listed Rodriguez as 1 of 5 commended artists from the US. While she did not make it to the final round, this is an awesome honor. Very few people in "developed nations" even make it past the initial cuts. To learn more about the prize: www.FreedomToCreate.com