Francisco Rodríguez | Baert Gallery | 21 February – 28 March
Francisco Rodríguez, The beast, 2025-26, oil on canvas, two panels, each: 1.7 x 1.4 m, overall: 1.7 × 2.8 m. Courtesy: Baert Gallery
In ‘Private Nightmares’, Santiago-born, London-based Francisco Rodríguez makes his US debut with paintings that evoke a sense of adolescence. Figures drift through cool interiors punctuated by flashes of red, suspended in moments that feel both intimate and unstable. Rodríguez describes this unfolding universe as ‘a long, long novel’ that draws from anime, Renaissance painting and Edo printmaking to capture his experience as a young immigrant in London. ‘What I try to bring into my paintings are universal feelings – loneliness and anxiety, but also love, friendship and rebellion’, he says to me. These dust-toned tableaux read as meditations on remaining grounded without surrendering one’s vulnerability.
