Cluster Illustration Solo Exhibition by Paula Rodriguez "Spaces Within"

Cluster Illustration Residency is proud to present Paula Rodriguez's first solo exhibition as one of the main outcomes from the program's activities. During a month of continuous support by industry professionals, Winsor & Newton and the Cluster team at their London studio provided to the artist, Paula developed her exhibition, her skills, vision and other projects.

"A life changing experience" - Paula Rodriguez

Part of Cluster’s new residency program exhibition series, Paula Rodriguez’s "Spaces Within" presents a series of gouache paintings that capture the inexplicable qualities of rural Mexican townships. Exaggerating their architectural features through scale, repetition and abstraction, Rivas Rodriquez emphasises the dysmorphic unease an empty street can trigger. Evoking the surrealist heritage of Giorgio de Chirico, the doorways, arches, and squares of her paintings are as much about the negative-spaces they create as they are about the space formed by brick and mortar. Between these walls silent voids are created, casting great distances between us, the viewer, and the solitary figures placed towards the horizons, resolution always out of reach.

With a keen awareness of the literary art of magic realism and an eye to traditional and contemporary Mexican architecture, Rivas Rodriguez manages to imbue each of her paintings a potent combination of stillness, memory, and heritage. Richly coloured they become poetic scenes that capture the way in which separation simultaneously distorts and embellishes our impression of the places we grew up, tinting our eventual return with expectations that reality cannot reach.

Private View: 6th October | 5:30pm - 8:30pm

Opening Times: 7 - 10th October | 11am - 6pm

Find out more about the residency program, the exhibition and the artist here:

www.cluster-london.com | [email protected] | +44 7808 659141