by Tom Concannon, Sam Hargrove and Catherine Oliven

Rodrigo Mateo’s The Fur Coat presents a simple idea—the coexistence of the solid and the soft. The work is a synthesis of two classical traditions that are playing out in Mateo’s painting career; a marriage of classical realist technique, dating back hundreds of years, with impressionist techniques dating to the 19th century. The older tradition insists on painting from observation and knowledge. The newer tradition calls for painting from witness and passion.

Mateo has studied under Jacob Collins at Grand Central Atelier, where solidity and form are taught and nature is represented by reading precisely how light reveals volume. He has also studied with Paul Ingbretson of the Boston School, who prizes turning light forms into image. One tradition builds the figure from within by starting with skeletal landmarks and musculature. The other creates the figure from without by interpreting light over form.

Is engaging two traditions a new thing? Not in the least. For millennia, humans have positioned order and form as the opposites of chaos and passion. We love turning notions like these into poles that stand in conflict with each other: reason and faith, knowing and feeling, mind and body, word and sense. 

No, it’s not new - it’s a popular subject. Thomas Mann took it on in his tragedy A Death in Venice. Kant dissected the poles in separate volumes, Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Judgment. One could trace the struggle of these ideas through centuries of literature, philosophy, music, religion and science. Usually, we are treated to the scorer’s play who wins points for one or the other. Less often we are shown the referee’s play, separating sides in opposite corners of the ring. Both plays look tired in the 21st century.

What’s new in Mateo’s work is the fearless marriage of factions; Mateo’s work declares no fight at all. He reminds us of a favorite quote from Nietzsche: 

Beauty is for the artist something outside all orders of rank, because in beauty opposites are tamed; the highest sign of power, namely power over opposites; moreover, without tension: – that violence is no longer needed: that everything follows, obeys, so easily and so pleasantly....

There are no poles here. Mateo lays both traditions on his canvas, an exuberant portrait of his wife and fellow artist Liz Beard. In it, we are treated to an epic taming of this struggle, effortlessly and beautifully.

He makes it easy for us to predict the trajectory of this painting. It's a welcome relief from the past battles of two tired camps, who may take note. There's a new voice speaking with confidence: nature can be rendered onto a painting without sorting us into factions or calling sides. 

The Fur Coat and other paintings by Mateo are available in our catalogue.