Artemio Rodríguez (Mexican, b. 1972) was born in Tacámbaro, Michoacán in 1972. He began his career as a printer’s apprentice with Juan Pascoe, at his renown letterpress studio Taller Martin Pescador (Kingfisher Workshop) in Tacámbaro, Michoacán. At the age of 21, Rodríguez immigrated to Los Angeles and became a printmaker at Self Help Graphics. He also co-founded La Mano Press in 2002 in Los Angeles before relocating to Michoacán in 2008 as La Mano Gráfica, a gallery and printmaking studio. Rodríguez directs the Library of Illustrated Books (Biblioteca del Libro Ilustrado, BLI) including its traveling library, the Bibliográfico, a converted 1977 Toyota, one of his many public projects and a companion to the Graficomovil, a 1948 delivery truck converted into a gallery and printmaking studio. 

Rodríguez is known for his linocut prints as well as his mural size prints, vehicles, and children’s books. Influenced by both European medieval woodcuts and Mexican cultural symbolism developed by artists like José Guadalupe Posada, Rodríguez’s style emphasizes simplicity, clarity, imbued with a personal narrative. His images come from contemporary icons like American cartoons and chicano culture, mythology, surrealism, zodiac signs, and Mexican “costumbrismo”. A poet at heart, Rodríguez uses the physicality of the printmaking process to write stories in images. His work has been exhibited internationally, and it is in the collections of many public institutions, including; the Seattle Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hammer Museum, Petersen Automotive Museum, Library of Congress, Phoenix Art Museum and Museo José Guadalupe Posada; a retrospective look of his works can be seen in the book American Dream.

" Rodríguez’s new works emphasize some of his best-loved figures – skeletons, devils, animals, children, and the royalty of Michoacán – in acts of celebration, seduction, and play. He captures a multitude of experiences within one moment and one image. Entire scenes of a play, entire poems, unfold in stark black lines. " 

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