Living Proof

In Shellyne Rodriguez' works, youth is part of a larger, intergenerational struggle for survival. As a means of showing youthful ingenuity in the face of systemic oppression, her works depict youth and utilize found objects, such as discarded, taped-together boxes carried by "Candy Boy" salesmen on the train. Rodriguez' engagement with young audiences is also evident in her assemblages, which integrate prints that were made during art-making workshops. The phrase, Hay hambre [there is hunger], visible in the assemblage, For Korynn Gaines, was created by the artist and the undocumented children who participated in one such session. In Rodriguez' words: "The phrase speaks to hunger grumbling in the belly, but also the drive to live and to thrive beyond the borders or the obstacles threatening to swallow them.”

Curated by Irini Zervas and Lauren Fowler