Abel Rodríguez

 

Above: 'The rainforest' 2007,

We lost a wise one last year; Abel Rodríguez Mogaje Guihu was an elder from the Nonuya ethnic group from the Cahuinarí river in the Colombian Amazon. Raised by his uncle, a sabedor man of knowledge, who taught him everything about plants. 1941–April 2025, Columbia, here to honour this artist and caretaker of the world is a wee post. 

Go out plant trees, plant hedges, plant flowers, plant, plant, plant!

Above: Abel Rodríguez. Las plantas cultivadas en la chagra. 2021 

"I feel my way when I speak and I feel my way when I paint. I see the palm tree in my mind’s eye, and I make its roots, trunk, bark, buds, branches—I make them in the air and on paper. A process of remembering, but also of guessing the words, of feeling my way to them—it is from there that things are born. You ask me in what ways are painting and planting alike. They are not alike. You do not eat, or produce, or grow in painting; you just look at the fruit—that’s it. The word, though, is the basis for how the chagra is created and the world administered." Abel Rodríguez

"The city’s food and plants are not like the forest’s, but they can feed you. If fertilizer is copied or has chemicals in it, it will hurt you. No matter how hard you try, you cannot copy things. If you copy something, whether a plant or a drawing, it will come out worse. But if you try to be respectful and let things grow in change, they will come out good.

These are the things I have learned. That is how I understand them, and so this is how I said them. I, for one, am always the same figure. I translate things in the same voice and with the same words. That is how I show them: the good and the bad, the dangerous and the difficult. When everything is spread out, displayed before the whole world, it loses physical energy. So it is also good to keep things in your mind, heed that knowledge, and lead a healthy life." Abel Rodríguez