Since earning his MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2007, painter Daniel Rios Rodriguez has gained traction for his thickly impastoed works, which feature slightly obscured depictions of personal experiences or reimagined traditional painting subjects—still life compositions, for example. Regarding the biographical elements of his work, Rodriguez’s paintings often evolve from an ordinary scene, with his children reappearing throughout his canvases. Over the course of his painting process, these clearly legible scenarios become abstracted, rendered in an ambiguous, more emotionally charged fashion. The artist is also interested in the raw materiality of painting, as is evinced by layered pieces comprised of collaged linen and fabric on canvas. These works in particular have drawn comparisons to outsider artist Forrest Bess as well as to Modernists such as Francis Picabia, Paul Klee, and Pablo Picasso.

Rodriguez was born Killeen, Texas, in 1978. Before receiving his MFA, he earned a BFA in studio arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Rodriguez has been exhibiting his work at galleries and institutions since 2011.