| Artist | Rocio Villanueva | Resides | Guatemala |
| Website | rociovillanueva.art | Medium | Photography |
| info.rociovillanueva@gmail.com | Themes | Spirituality Surrealism Dream world Emptiness Healing Deep dialogue within myself Pain Loss | |
| Follow the Artist | Instagram | Facebook |
About the artist
Rocio Villanueva is an Italian-Guatemalan photographer and artist based in Guatemala City. From a very early age artistic expressions have been engraved in her consciousness, through drawing, painting, photography and art appreciation with the help of her great-uncle, who introduced her by chance in this world of art.
Rocio is self-taught, for the past 6 years she has been creating surrealistic conceptual works. She uses mainly digital photography as her canvas and Photoshop intervention as the tool for her creations. Her creative process begins beyond the computer. It starts with sketches on paper that take shape through elements, time, places and characters. Her images represent parallel and dreamlike worlds that come to life through the play of light and shadow, colour and textures that create a different vision of non-existent places that resemble a painting more than a photography.
Rocio Villanueva has participated in group exhibitions in the cities of Guatemala, San Salvador, Barcelona, Vienna, New York, Rome, Miami and Palm Beach. And solo exhibitions in Guatemala City.
Artwork Themes & Subject Matter
Rocio Villanueva wishes to reveal the invisible, the intimate, to fill voids, to materialise dreams without beginning, without end.
She wants to present the unconscious; inside the dreamlike world, out of the cold and cruel reality that surrounds it by means of the intervention of digital photography.
Her artistic production does not try to please the outside world. It is only a mirror of my inner self; a place where she can hide and contemplate a better version of reality. Where the ghosts of time already lived and the secrets of the future merge in a sacred timeless moment.
Rocio offers a reflection on the fragility of beauty, the pain of loss; the emptiness and vulnerability of her inner self, to allow a deep dialogue with the spirit of those who experience her art, trying to be revealing and healing at the same time.
She tries to create images that represent psychological experiences that arise sporadically and unconsciously (without having tangible or scientific knowledge of them) that are born in her mind. They appear from the innocence with which she approaches a subject that concerns her but that flows without a planned guide.
Often taken at random to arrive at the theme of the idea of the work, which becomes the path of its development.
CV
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022
Your Life in Me, Rocio Villanueva Art Gallery & Studio, Guatemala, Guatemala
The Mutants of Attachments, Rocio Villanueva Art Gallery & Studio, Guatemala, Guatemala
The Mutants of Attachments, Rafael Rodriguez Padilla School of Plastic Arts, Guatemala, Guatemala
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023
Fotonostrum Sideshow, Galería Fotonostrum, Barcelona, España
Sumarte de El Salvador, Subasta de Arte, San Salvador, El Salvador
Arte en Mayo, Fundación Rozas-Botrán, Guatemala, Guatemala
Firenze Contemporary, Armando Xhomo Gallery, Firenze, Italia
2022
Momentos, Convento Santo Domingo, Guatemala, Guatemala
Sumarte de El Salvador, Subasta de Arte, San Salvador, El Salvador
Arte en Mayo, Fundación Rozas-Botrán, Guatemala, Guatemala
Exposition Latinas, Le monde vu par le femmes d’Amerique Latine, Galeria Rivoli 59, Paris, Francia
2021
Arte12, Sol del Rio, Guatemala, Guatemala
Exposure, See-Me, Scope, Miami, United States
Re-Visiones III, Sol del Rio, Guatemala, Guatemala
Dependencia InDependencia, Sol del Rio, Guatemala, Guatemala
Juannio, Museo de arte moderno, Guatemala, Guatemala
Arte en Mayo, Fundación Rozas-Botrán, Guatemala, Guatemala
2020
Art Saves Humanity Exhibition, See Me, Virtual Exhibition
Arte en Mayo, Fundación Rozas-Botrán, Guatemala, Guatemala
See Me “S/he Persisted…”, Virtual Exhibition, New York, N.Y. United States
Salón de invierno, Galería Art Nou Mil-lenni, Barcelona, España
2019
Arte Contemporáneo, Asociación Giovani Omiccoli, Roma, Italia
Momentos, Convento de Santo Domingo, Guatemala, Guatemala
De lo íntimo a lo inconsciente, Arte en Viena, Viena, Austria
Arte en Mayo, Fundación Rozas-Botran, Guatemala, Guatemala
See Me, The Affordable Air Fair, Metropolitan Pavillion, New York, N.Y. United States
Horizontes, Museo de las Casas Reales, Santo Domingo, República Dominicana
2018
Open Art, Biblioteca Angelica, Roma, Italia
Vibrante, Galleria Monogramma, Roma Italia
8×8 Self Portrait Exhibition, 33 Contemporary Gallery, Chicago, United States
Arte en Mayo, Fundación Rozas-Botrán, Guatemala
Reflejos, The Box Gallery, West Palm Beach, United States
