“There is an incommensurability between essences and facts, and that whoever begins his researches with the facts will never attain to the essences […] For indeed this understanding is not a quality that comes to the human reality from without, but is its own mode of existence”.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Luis’ artwork, more than 900 paintings, is a human catharsis. It is the record of the ecstatic experience of a creative outburst in the form of revelation. His characters became the very essence of memory and the architects of the vital sense of everyday life.
The composition of his work interweaves the interpretive narrative of the author’s philosophical effort to find a reflection of human existence as only the autonomy of artistic exploration can achieve in a non-consciousness of a collection of images, experiences, and emotions.
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Luis Rodriguez Naranjo is a Mexican artist best known for the unique characters he has made his own, introducing them in every artwork since the launch in 2015 of his painting series, Cerdines de la Erre.
Since his early years, he entered the graphic arts world searching for authentic art by experimentation with different techniques and methods. Despite the thought of his artwork as a hobby, Luis unexpectedly changed his mind when, through a personal project, he experimented with being able to drain his feelings and express them in art. Before it happened, when he was studying architecture, he stopped painting indefinitely, thinking that the career would complete himself better. After he got his degree and worked in the field, he felt the necessity for bringing back art to his life.
The work is motivated by the combination of his everyday life and his subjective reality in an imaginative pig world, where all he visualizes appears to become what he names piggable.
In January 2015, the artist began the guiding axis of Cerdines de la Erre. With a daily painting project; he committed to finishing a daily paint through the day and not going to sleep until it was published. The project soon turned into his first collection, entitled "365 Cerdines de la Erre, Catarsis Humana". Thus, marking his artistic work, he resolves to offer the viewer means of inspiration to evoke fragments of existence itself with daily characters, encapsulating time and achieving its materialization.
In 2016, the creation of his second collection entitled " Veintiún Cerdines de la Erre, Covers Pictóricos", twenty-one paintings inspired by different known works of recognized artists; began. Following the guidelines of his first collection, the pig remains the central character, replacing the human essence of the paints.
In 2017, Luis ventures back into the challenge of a daily painting project with a global thematic, comics. The interpretation of characters in what became his third collection unifies his work. And he experienced again what it feels like to start and finish a painting on the same day, leaving on it a fragment of himself.
The first and third collections, 2015 and 2017, frame great importance for the artist and people close to him. Because during the creation process of both, many dates encapsulate different preferences, relating the essence of the painting with special dates as birthdays; those preferences refer to characters with whom Luis' close people identify, but also to characters with whom Luis identifies them.
Several collections from 2018 to 2023, approximately twenty-two collections, make up his latest works and are composed of different painting series that include cover paintings, like the ones created in 2015 and 2016, technique experimentation like engraving, and commissioned work, always immerse in his imaginative pig world.
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Born in La Piedad, Michoacan, a small city in Mexico, on July 6th, 1989. Luis completed his elementary and high school studies in his hometown. He went on to graduate from Universidad Iberoamericana in Leon, Guanajuato, with a degree in architecture. By his early adulthood and after became an architect, he settled for eight years in Leon, in this time, he worked extensively in the field of architecture and interior design. By the end of 2020, he got forced to quit his job; due to the pandemic situation that pushed and made him a full-time artist.
His relationship with pigs dates back long before he was born. For more than 50 years, the family business was pig breeding and fattening, so he grew up around this environment; his grandfather started it in 1964. Then his father and uncle continued it until its closure in 2017. The pigs have been a bond with his family throughout his artistic journey. He currently lives in his hometown, La Piedad, Michoacan.
EXHIBITIONS
SOLO
February 4, 2017
El Colegio de Michoacan, A.C. Cultural Diffusion / Casa de la Cultura de La Piedad Michoacan in La Piedad, Michoacan, Mexico
Paintings on display, 365 pieces: Collection No. 01 365 Cerdines de la Erre, Catarsis Humana
September 28, 2017
Universidad Iberoamericana in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico
Paintings on display, 21 pieces: Collection No. 02 Veintiún Cerdines de la Erre, Covers Pictóricos
September 30, 2017
LAPA Store Inauguration in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico
Paintings on display, 38 pieces: Collection No. 01 365 Cerdines de la Erre, Catarsis Humana
December 1, 2017
Gallery 1910 in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico
Paintings on display, 38 pieces: Collection No. 01 365 Cerdines de la Erre, Catarsis Humana
July 13, 2018
Mexican Culture Seminar, Correspondent Lagos de Moreno / Casa de la Cultura de Lagos de Moreno in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, Mexico
Paintings on display, 21 pieces: Collection No. 02 Veintiún Cerdines de la Erre, Covers Pictóricos
COLLECTIVE
November 16, 2016, to August 20, 2017
Instant Icon. Photogenic Design
TRAPHOLT Museum of Art and Design in Kolding, Denmark
Painting on display, one piece: No. 273 (September 30, 2015) / Collection No. 01 365 Cerdines de la Erre, Catarsis Humana
April 5, 2017
Una Noche de Arte (An Art Night)
Discovery Center de Alamar, Grupo Real del Mar in Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Nayarit, Mexico
Paintings on display, 21 pieces: Collection No. 02 Veintiún Cerdines de la Erre, Covers Pictóricos
July 29, 2018
El Color de Lagos (The Color of Lagos)
Mexican Culture Seminar, Correspondent Lagos de Moreno / Casa de la Cultura de Lagos de Moreno in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, Mexico
Painting on display, one piece: Collection No. 08 Las Cersirenas de Tamayo
May 12, 2022
The New Banqueter La Expo (The New Banqueter The Exhibition)
Casa de la Cultura de La Piedad Michoacan in La Piedad, Michoacan, Mexico Printed covers on display, two pieces: Collection No. 16 The New Banqueter Covers
August 20-21, 2022
Casa Michoacan, Ministry of Culture of the Michoacan State / Casa de la Cultura de La Piedad Michoacan in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico
Paintings on display, 21 pieces: 16 Pieces from Collection No. 2 Veintiún Cerdines de la Erre, Covers Pictóricos and 5 Pieces from Collection No. 16 The New Banqueter Covers
September 8 – December 16, 2022
Descubrimientos by Art 58 Gallery
Galería Paseo Interlomas by Art 58 Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico
Paintings on display, 10 pieces: Collection No. 2 Veintiún Cerdines de la Erre, Covers Pictóricos
