| Rodrigo Franzão | |
| Birth Date: | 27 April 1982 |
| Birth Place: | São Paulo, Brazil |
| Training: | University of Sao Marcos, Paulista College of Arts, University Center Claretiano |
| Website: | Founder of Museu Têxtil |
Rodrigo Franzão (born April 27, 1982) is a contemporary Brazilian artist known for his innovative textile art and mixed media creations. He lives and works between New York, New Orleans, and Sao Paulo, focusing on sustainability and environmental responsibility in his art. Franzão’s works often feature intricate interplay of light, shadow, color, and texture, achieved through meticulously folded and layered paper strips on canvas, creating dynamic effects reminiscent of kinetic art.[1]
Franzão has an extensive academic background, including degrees in Literature and Arts, an MBA in Museology and Art History, and specializations in Psychopedagogy and Art Therapy.[2] He founded the Virtual Textile Museum and the art magazine InTheArts, further contributing to the field of contemporary textile art.[3]
His works have been exhibited globally, including in prestigious public collections such as the National Arts Club in New York and the Museum of the Superior Court of Justice in Brasília.[4] Franzão’s art invites viewers to contemplate universal themes such as life, society, and the interconnectedness of opposing elements.[5]
Between 2002 and 2004, Rodrigo Franzão studied Language Arts at the University of São Marcos.[6] During this time, he learned concrete poetry in Brazilian literature classes, which reinforced his interest for geometric abstraction. After graduating in Language Arts, Franzão taught Portuguese language and Brazilian literature for nearly a decade. During this time, he had the opportunity to combine art into his classes.[7] Soon after that the evolution of his artistic process begun to unfold.Between 2008 and 2011, he enrolls in Psychopedagogy, Art Therapy and in Communication Art education classes at the Paulista College of Arts.[8] At the same time, his evolution as an artist distinctly manifested itself during his tenure at the College of Architecture and Urbanism at the United Metropolitan College (2011)[1] which emphasized spatial organization and visual communication.In order to put this theoretical knowledge into practice, in 2013 he goes further by enrolling in art college at the University Center Claretiano in Brasilia, Brazil, to gain a greater understanding of the historical, social and aesthetic context of art.[1]
Rodrigo Franzão is influenced by geometric abstraction and constructivist art. He expresses himself with the aim of revealing the transparency that exists through the use of every day materials. Through multiple languages he interweaves mixed media to show the minutiae and structure that fragment into dispersion, gap and sound.After graduating in Psychpedagogy and Art Therapy, he started to find inspiration in almost everything that surrounds the human universe and to assimilate the way humans interact with their own repertoire.He combines two-dimensional and three-dimensional effects, creating a relationship of dependency between both. Besides geometric abstraction, bright colors are used in his artworks to harmonize the contrast between the shape and colors.
His inspirations are the works by Eva Hesse, Josef Albers, Kansuke Yamamoto, Sheila Hicks, Paolo Scheggi, Lucio Fontana, Turi Simeti, Roberto Burle Marx.[9]
Rodrigo Franzão exhibited his first series of works entitled Involuntary Exclusion at Anexxo Gallery in Brazil.[10] Utilizing fabric, needles and copper wire, Franzão's idea was to establish the dialogue that an individual plays between what it means to live and become a visible and active member of society through the act of becoming a consumer, and through that concealing his true essence.The following year, he presents this same series of works in the Supreme Court Museum[11] in Brasília,[1] a public museum with the architecture by Oscar Niemeyer.In the same year, Rodrigo Franzão introduces its new series of works in the National Arts Club in New York City, private club founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay, an art and literary critic of the New York Times to "stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts and to educate the American people in the fine arts". The Exhibit titled "Katharsis" presents works inspired in the human body, showing at first plan the structures that sustain all the biological condition in the human being. Through a plan of observation, Franzão suggests in his work the harmony between geometry and figurative forms leading the observer to come across their own reality.About the artists and the series Katharsis, Robert Yahner, the curator of the exhibition, says "Franzão is one of the most dynamic and provocative artists among Brazil's new generation of talent. Enlightened by an early background in Literature and Communications, the work of Rodrigo Franzão reveals an incantatory discourse between the artist, his vision and his uninhibited involvement with found materials. KATHARSIS transforms this dialogue into an exploration of the human form moving from aspects of beauty to biological condition. The grounding force of Franzão's line combined with the vibrant play of geometric abstraction gives KATHARSIS a rhythmic power. The work is further enhanced by the artist's facile use of mixed media and a brilliant sense of color - an echoing pulse of his native country."[12]
Rodrigo Franzão has two works in public collections. They can be visited at the Supreme Court Museum in Brasília.