Artist Statement

Victimization, desolation, yearning and empathy are the fundamental themes in my body of work. How I first became aware of these concepts was through classic black and white films that date as far back as the 1930s. My childhood favorites in particular were Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, David Lynch's The Elephant Man and Frankenstein staring Boris Karloff. These silver screen atrocities were the first out of countless archetypes I can recall experiencing true empathy for.

As I reached my teens, I began illustrating characters that have their own exaggerated physical deformities and illnesses that symbolize the struggles I witnessed my friends and family endure, as well as my own inner conflicts. I have made my characters in the likeness of children to enable the viewer to take their whirl of emotions and strip them down to the common simple state of submissiveness that we have all experienced and can sympathize with. For instance, in expressing one of my own personal flaws, I have created a character by the name of Squid boy. He is dependant on the temporary satisfaction of sympathetic affection, and earthly indulgences. His tentacles are constantly in movement, steadily searching the air, grasping onto anything that might bring him to a new level of happiness or enlightenment.

Ultimately, I wish to encourage the viewer to look into the deepest part of themselves in hoping that they find the common thread that binds us all.

- Jonathan Rodriguez