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The term “locally sourced” often refers to food. But for artist Sandy Rodriguez, it actually applies to her paintings.
Rodriguez, its latest site-specific exhibition Unfolding History – 200 Years of Resistance On display at UC Santa Barbara’s Museum of Art, Design, and Architecture, he makes botanical and soil paints himself to create site-based imagery—in this case, California’s Central Coast.
The Los Angeles-based artist, whose work has been exhibited at major museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, and the Huntington Library, spent months researching the history and botany of the area. Among her excursions was a four-day trip to the Channel Islands.
“It’s honorable,” Rodriguez said. “We were driven around the island where we could observe plants that were not found anywhere else in the world. We also visited archaeological sites. I got to sit and draw and go on beautiful hikes.
“I came home with some really nice samples of plants and soil – with permission, of course – and I used them to create paint. The process of coloring is covered in the object.”
These colors—including deep reds and particularly vibrant teals—have a unique beauty. But her work goes beyond providing aesthetic pleasure. In many of her works, Rodriguez draws attention to past and present protest movements and juxtaposes images in a way that suggests that resistance to oppression is a long and ongoing story.
“Sandy is a fusion of past and present,” said exhibition curator Sophia McCabe. “She tells the story of California history from the perspective of the colonized. This history is often excluded from Western history books.”
The centerpiece of the UCSB exhibit is a “massive double-sided maple folding screen,” Rodriguez said. “One side is a night view of Santa Barbara from the Channel Islands, all done with handmade charcoal. It’s a shimmering reflective night sky.
“I inlaid about 300 pieces of baby abalone to make the stars and used handmade oil paints to make something more enduring.
“The other side used soil from Santa Cruz Island, giving it a warm, earthy tone. On that side, I drew a map of central California, highlighting sites of resistance spanning 200 years.”
With this piece, Rodriguez draws attention to a largely forgotten piece of local history: the Chumash Uprising of 1824. That year, the native peoples of the area rebelled against the Spanish and Mexican colonists who controlled the area.
Rodriguez commemorated the event by referencing it on a map, and included in the exhibit a painting of the mission of Santa Ynez on fire. The images are juxtaposed with other images depicting recent acts of insurgency, including protest marches following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
“Sandy’s paintings critique the colonial legacy,” McCabe said. “She brings together historical and current events to show how we got to this moment.”
Originally from the San Diego area, Rodriguez comes from a family of artists. “There’s my grandfather, my grandmother, my mother and myself — I suspect it goes back much further,” she said. She knew from an early age that she was destined to work in the family business.
“I was 16 when I was enrolled in the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts,” she recalls. “I’m happy that I can finish my English, Maths and History by noon and then be in the studio from noon to 3pm, it feels fantastic.”
Rodriguez spent 20 years working in various art museums before turning to full-time art, an experience that contributed to her growth as an artist, she said.
“Part of my job at the museum is to teach studio classes,” she said. “So I referenced the studies of masters like Degas and Courbet and thought about their use of line. My work draws on these influences. It’s a deliberate mix of European and American traditions.”
Her most immediate influence was the Codex Florentine, an encyclopedic study of the people and plants of the Mexican colony, put together by Franciscan missionaries in the 16th centuryday century.
Rodriguez used the work as a template to create new drawings on the same ancient bark paper used for manuscripts.
Several of the paintings she created for the exhibition depict native flora unique to the Central Coast region.
“This is my first sustained engagement with the Central Coast,” she said. “It was really transformative. The conversations with artists, historians, and people with backgrounds as diverse as anthropology, sociology, and ethnobotany have been incredible.”
Using this background information, Rodriguez has crafted beautiful work that reveals some ugly truths about the region’s past—and shows how timeless notions of freedom and equality still resonate.
“One of my tactics is to bait and engage the audience and then introduce conversations that we’re unlikely to have unless we’re part of it,” she says. “We have to face the reality of our time and understand how we got here.
“We can connect the past with the present and see the future.”
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