Join Los Angeles-based Chicana artist and researcher Sandy Rodriguez as she discusses the exhibition Currents of Resistance, currently on view at The Ringling, in the context of her ongoing series Codex Rodriguez Mondragon. Her works map intersections of history, social memory, and contemporary politics. Strongly influenced by both the 16th-century colonial Florentine Codex and present-day issues along the US-Mexico border and Western US and now the US Southeast, Rodriguez’s works map the ongoing cycles of violence on communities of color by blending historical and recent events.

The rigorous process that culminates in the production of a work requires intensive independent field study and research that merges materials, local and colonial histories, and data about recent events collected by news agencies and social justice organizations. Rodriguez uses hand-processed color from native plant- and earth-based materials according to colonial recipes. Her work engages with the discourse around the place of historical research-based art to provide a place of healing for historic and present-day trauma. These methods allow the artist to slow down and connect with land, history, the present, and sites. A primary goal of her work is to disrupt western European dominant narratives in art museums with paintings that interrogate legacies of colonial aggression while championing Chicana knowledge Systems.

Presented in conjunction with Sandy Rodriguez: Currents of Resistance on view April 5 – August 10, 2025. Currents of Resistance is the culminating exhibition of her 2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize commission.

About the artist:

Sandy Rodriguez (b. 1975, National City, CA) is a Los Angeles-based Chicana artist and researcher. Her ongoing series Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón is made up of a collection of maps and paintings about the intersections of history, social memory, contemporary politics, and cultural production. Her works are in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR; Amon Carter Museum, TX; The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Garden, CA; Denver Art Museum, CO and Mellon Art Collection, NYC and others. She was recently awarded the 2025-2026 Kully Distinguished Fellowship in American Art, 2024 US Latinx Art Fellowship, 2023 Jacob Lawrence Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize, Caltech-Huntington Art + Research Residency 2020, Creative Capital Award 2020. Rodriguez and her work have been featured in BBC News: In The Studio, Hyperallergic, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Spectrum News 1, and others.

https://www.studiosandyrodriguez.com/

Top Image: Sandy Rodriguez, Choreography of Dissent No. 2, 2024. Hand-processed watercolor on amate paper, 47 x 94.5 in. Image: j6 creative, courtesy of the artist.

Artist portrait by Elon Shoenholz

What to Expect / Accessibility Information

• Crowded Areas
• Dim Lights
• Stairs
• Adult Content

This program is part of our Family Night Summer Kickoff!

Please note: Your ticket to this Viewpoint Lecture automatically includes entry to the Summer Kick-off!

Join us for our first annual Summer Kickoff event, highlighting the awe of our beautiful campus and artist Sandy Rodriguez's exhibition Currents of Resistance. Spend an evening exploring her exhibition and the Museum of Art with free entry. We will provide WonderWalks for the grounds and art making, our amazing guides will be in the Sandy Rodriguez exhibition, and many of our community partners will be there sharing information about their summer events. Get the summer started right with a night together at The Ringling!