Martha Rodriguez (1956) - Visage de femme

Description of the work:
Original sculpture by Martha Rodriguez (born 1956), Franco-Venezuelan artist based in France since 1980 and working in Nogent-sur-Marne.

Likely realized in the second half of the 1990s, this glass sculpture on a granite base represents a profile of a woman's face, whose features emerge in the thickness, cuts and transparencies of the glass.

The composition rests on the contrast between two materials: on the one hand, the mineral, opaque and deliberately rough mass of granite; on the other, the transparency of the glass, worked in thickness and following irregular contours.

From the observation angle and the lighting, the female profile appears with more or less sharpness. The edges of the glass catch and refract light, giving the sculpture a changing appearance.

This use of glass is particularly representative of the research undertaken by Martha Rodriguez during this period. The artist explains that she began working with glass from 1995, in an artistic exploration of transparency, light and space. A documentation from the Vasarely Foundation also mentions her use of wood, stone, iron as well as battered and crushed glass, in a search for “transparency and shadows.”

The work is signed directly in the glass, on the edge of the sculpture, at the level of the chin of the face.

The irregularities visible on the contours of the glass contribute to the plastic treatment of the sculpture and its interaction with light.

Dimensions with base: 27 × 16 × 10 cm
Weight: approximately 4.3 kg.

Provenance:
Former Denise Guillet collection (1938-2025), Nogent-sur-Marne.
The work was kept in Denise Guillet’s personal collection until her death in 2025, before joining the current private collection.

About Martha Rodriguez:
Martha Rodriguez is a Franco-Venezuelan artist born in Caracas in 1956. After studies in graphic arts at the Newman Institute of Design in Caracas and further training in Paris, she gradually moves from graphic design to plastic expression. Based in France since 1980, she works in Nogent-sur-Marne.

Painter, sculptor, engraver and multimedia artist, she develops a research around transparency, emptiness, volume, light and space occupancy. Glass plays an important role in this research, alongside wood, stone, metal, paper and other materials.

A publication devoted to the artist notes that she began working with glass around 1995. It explains that she seeks transparency and the effects produced by light and air. Around 2010, her work evolves toward other materials and larger-scale sculptures, notably intended for public space.

Her work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in France and abroad. The Museum of Geometric and MADI Art notes more than 50 group exhibitions since 1991, in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Hungary, Spain, Egypt, Venezuela and the United States.

In 2011, Martha Rodriguez received the first prize at the Guadalajara Sculpture Biennial, in Mexico, for her work Rebozos.