Darian Rodriguez Mederos was born in 1992 in Santa Clara, Cuba. The Cuban prodigy’s work focuses on the ubiquitous human face. Emotive and replete with meaning, our faces
encompass the vast human experience, revealing everything at once or nothing at all. Even in concealment, there is nuance. Our expressions cross borders, race and culture, they are a common thread among humanity. A smile is a smile.
With the “Obscura Series”, Mederos creates something new, a photorealistic abstraction. The bubble wrap reflects light and distorts the underlying image, it is only at a distance that the works come into focus. When viewed up close the faces dissolve into bold strokes of flesh tones and painted light. The artist challenges the viewer with the “Obscura Series” in asking us to understand the core of human identity, from a respectful distance.
Mederos attended his first two years of art school at Leopoldo Romañach in his hometown of Santa Clara, Cuba. Always striving to be better, he applied and was accepted to the much-lauded, and oldest art school in the Western Hemisphere, La Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, in Havana, Cuba.
At the age of 22, Mederos left Cuba, alone. He arrived in Miami and was picked up by his gallery of record Conde Contemporary, in less than six weeks. Since then his work has been shown in LA, NY, Miami, Santa Fe, London, and Dinard, France. His work resides in private collections worldwide, including London, Miami, NY, LA, Shanghai, Malaysia, Tel Aviv, Italy, Estonia, and Denmark.
The 28-year-old artist continues to evolve, constantly exploring new forms of representation. Darian Mederos currently resides and works in Natchez, Mississippi.
