Issay Rodriguez
Issay Rodriguez is a Filipina artist currently based in London. Born in 1991, she received her BFA degree from the University of the Philippines. She is a Jose Moreno Foundation scholar and received a bursary to attend the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris before graduating with the Outstanding Thesis Award in 2013.
Alongside printmaking, Rodriguez is inspired by her involvement in alternative learning environments and nature conservancy groups, where she functions as part of a research and communications team. As a result, her practice embraces the chaotic inspiration that stems from technology and unstable media.
If you are interested in her work, please visit her website and Instagram.
About:
Rodriguezes current projects focus on the rich metaphors and ecological significance of bees and how humans can gain insight into their own values and ways of thinking by understanding more about their biology and cultural importance. Cosmic Garden, a series of long exposure images taken under UV light, approximates how bees perceive the plants they pollinate and forms part of this research for new projects under her Gasworks residency. While the images aren’t exact simulations of how bees actually see flowers–they can’t perceive the colour red for instance–such images open viewers’ eyes to an unseen world where pollen grains glow like landing strip lights. She then arranges these colour references into mandala-like patterns that encourage viewers to consider the baffling, beautiful logic that governs nature.
Issay Rodriguez, Cosmic Garden I, 2022. Digital collage.
Issay Rodriguez, Cosmic Garden II, 2022. Digital collage.
Her DOON (Over There) AR/VR project at the incubator space of Art Fair Philippines 2020 was made in the same vein. Collaborating with multimedia studio G/FK/DS and AR/VR-focused Imagine Realities Studios, Rodriguez invited visitors to download the DOON AR app, then forage for flowers (stickers) hidden around the fair. After scanning the stickers, they could enter the beehive (rendered in VR) where they communicated with the rest of the hive by performing the famous waggle dance–the signal forager bees use to communicate that they’ve found a good source of nectar or pollen by flying in reverse loops that approximate an infinity sign.
Issay Rodriguez, DOON (Over There) AR/VR Project, 2020. Inside the beehive.
The project was heavily influenced by Rodriguezes 2018 Bellas Artes residency in the province of Bataan, Philippines, where she saw firsthand how much the local community relied on harvesting honey. “[It] led me [to think] about the role of art in activating conversations and appreciation of our surroundings… [it] gave me the drive to continue learning about our native species…and [finding] ways to translate one’s art practice in alternative forms.”
Issay Rodriguez, Notes on Schefflera 8/5 and Notes on Schefflera Gentle Sky IV, 2021. Cyanotype on paper, 121.92 x 243.84 cm. Photo courtesy of Silverlens Gallery.
This openness to finding new ways to facilitate these encounters between people and the environment is part of the reason Rodriguez seems to effortlessly switch between mediums. Prior to her recent tech-driven work, Rodriguez was known in Manila for her cyanotypes of household ornamental plants, a project she embarked on in the wake of her new fascination with learning about Philippine flora and fauna. At once charming and nostalgic, her cyanotypes present the ghostly leaves and stalks against neutral-toned backgrounds–a play on light, shape, and negative space.
DOON (Over There) AR/VR Project participant, 2020.
Preliminary UVIVF photo taken from the Walworth Garden for Cosmic Garden series, 2022.
Rodriguezes research on literature that celebrates the bee as a sacred creature spanning different timelines and continents. Gasworks, London, 2022.
Selected Exhibitions
2021 Brighter Than Many Ever See, Silverlens, Manila
2021 ALPAS: CCP Gawad Alternatibo, Emergent Media
2020 DOON AR/VR Project, artn23, AFP incubator space
2018 To Eat is to Survive to be Hungry, 1335 Mabini Projects
Residencies
2021 GASWORKS Artist Residency, London, United Kingdom
2019 Bamboo Curtain Studio, Creative Talents Program, Taipei, Taiwan
2017-18 ASIA IN DARWIN: Vanishing in the Process, Darwin Community Arts Center
LIR Space, Yogyakarta, Indonesia/ 98B, Manila, Philippines
2017 Bellas Artes Projects, Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, Bataan, Philippines
Monica Gabrielle Fernandez
Contributing Writer, MADE IN BED