Costa Rican artist Emmanuel Rodriguez-Chaves examines how images shape systems of belief and memory, and the power structures they sustain. Working across painting, collage and installation, he layers photography, archival fragments and other found materials to question the narratives embedded in visual culture.

His practice combines a painter’s sensitivity to material with a researcher’s attention to history and ideology, positioning him among the most considered voices within a new generation of emerging Latin American artists.

Alongside his studio work, Rodríguez Chaves co-directs abra.espacio in San José, an independent art space dedicated to experimentation and exchange for Costa Rica and its emerging Latin American artists. As the gallery opens a new exhibition, Fulgor by Dino Urpi, we spoke with Emmanuel about the evolution of his practice, the challenges of building cultural infrastructure in Costa Rica and how he sees the role of images today.

Emmanuel Rodriguez-Chaves, Niños mirando a la rata (III - TV), 2025, Oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm | 78.7 x 78.7 in.

Interview between Emmanuel Rodriguez-Chaves (ERC) and MÍRAME Co-Founder Belinda Seppings (BS) 

BS: Your work often draws from archives, photography and fragments of existing images. What first led you to this way of working, and how has your relationship to found material evolved over time?

ERC: This way of working did not emerge at the beginning of my creative process. It developed gradually, as I started asking more questions about the images I was working with — for instance, where they came from. While studying at the University of Costa Rica, I received excellent guidance from professors such as José Miguel Páez and Esteban Piedra. Both were young teachers who focused on technical development and encouraged us to question our own creative and research processes.

This was unusual at the school. Even today, there remains a strong emphasis on “craft” — the idea of mastering one’s technique. In my view, this is important, but not essential, especially in a world where technologies act as splints or devices that facilitate the development of artistic proposals and can even be understood as techniques in their own right.

These lecturers motivated me to take a more self-critical view of my practice. From that period onwards, I began using photography as a reference in a rather pamphleteering way: either on my own or with friends, I would stage scenes, pose, and decorate the compositions to visually convey what we wanted to express through paintings or installations.

At the time, images were tools to question certain ideologies embedded in my way of thinking — shaped, for example, by growing up in a Costa Rican context marked by Catholicism, conservatism, prudishness, and machismo. Painting and imagemaking became a way to confront these ideological mechanisms. The images I produced back then functioned, ultimately, as ideological or counter-ideological pamphlets.

Emmanuel Rodriguez-Chaves, Ideologema, 2024, Oil on canvas, 31.7 x 28 cm | 12.5 x 11 in. Private Collection. Darwin, Australia.

From 2012–2013 onwards, I began experimenting more with found images and incorporating technology into my processes. Before that, I never “designed” my paintings in advance. I would start from my own photographs, select colour palettes intuitively, and paint without drawing, alla prima, applying material with different tools — including my hands — in a fast and impulsive way. I would erase and layer parts, mixing fabrics, papers, photographic prints, or objects of interest. This approach was partly influenced by my research on the creative process of the Irish painter Francis Bacon, which I explored in my Honours studies.

Initially, and quite innocently, working with found material freed me from having to look for “big themes” or romantic justifications for making work. Over time, and through a lot of reflection, the use of found images became meaningful to me: I was “rescuing” images discarded in what the North American theorist W. J. T. Mitchell calls “the wilderness of images” that surrounds and includes us.

Today, with the help of new technologies, I can reconfigure, manipulate, and combine fragments of these images. This strategy is not new — since the avant-gardes, and even earlier, artists have worked in similar ways.

Emmanuel Rodriguez-Chaves, Paramnesia (Everything Arrives Without There Being Any Need To Depart), 2025, Oil on wood on board, 30 x 23 cm | 11.8 x 9.1 in.

Over time, Rodríguez-Chaves’ interest in images expanded from the personal to the systemic. What began as a questioning of his own cultural and ideological inheritance evolved into a broader investigation of how images circulate, gain meaning and inform collective memory.

BS: Your work often considers how memory and history are constructed through images. When starting a new project, what tends to lead — the conceptual framework or the process of making?

ERC: Over the past ten years, my focus has shifted from creating striking images that produce an initial shock (which some still do), to concentrating more on the installations I produce. These bring together paintings, objects, found images, and museographic elements (including the presence or absence of text) to form what I call “scenarios” — spatial configurations that strongly influence how images are interpreted.

For me, images are not only two-dimensional objects; they are also ideas, dreams, texts, and experiences. My interest, therefore, lies not only in image production but in constructing spatial installations that people can move through.

To answer directly: I am interested in both the material and the ideas it generates. At the moment, I am working on two exhibitions that revolve around the idea of the future — or rather, the failed notion of the future that many people of my generation experience.

We live in highly politicised spaces — mental and physical — even though some artists claim otherwise. A personal example is the conversations I have with my relatives in Costa Rica and the United States. Most of them support conservative political figures such as Donald Trump or Rodrigo Chaves, Costa Rica’s own “wannabe-Trump.”

These leaders represent forms of authoritarian masculinity and a return to binary, easily legible worldviews. Many of my relatives support them because they embody a sense of stability linked to the way they grew up, even though this implies a regression for future generations.

All of this underscores how images and the imaginaries they generate are crucial. This is why I often use images that represent key moments in world political history. One example is the series The Destruction of Dreams, which I began during a residency organised by Abra Espacio’s internationalisation program in collaboration with the La Neomudéjar Museum in Madrid, Spain.

The series references visual representations of figures such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and other contemporary political leaders. The economic agendas implemented by Thatcher and Reagan are considered foundational to the global expansion of neoliberalism, encapsulated in the infamous phrase: “There is no alternative.”

Emmanuel Rodriguez-Chaves, La destrucción de los sueños I-V (The Destruction of Dreams I-V), 2025, Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm | 23.6 x 19.7 in.

Although the series has a somewhat pamphleteering character, I am interested in rescuing these images because they are deeply connected to current geopolitical realities. Like the “Trumps” of today, Thatcher and Reagan were highly popular figures — loved and hated in equal measure — whose physical presence played a crucial symbolic role for supporters and opponents. This connects with something I once heard the Argentine philosopher and anthropologist Anahí Ré say during the presentation of a book by Czech author Vilém Flusser:

“What is happening with this moment of technical images? To what extent are we returning to a mythical, prehistoric, circular way of relating to images — one that lacks critical thought?”

Her point is that we have become superstitious, even animistic, in the way we relate to images, setting aside criticality.

These concerns about images and context are mirrored in his own trajectory. Having lived and studied in Berlin and Melbourne before returning to Costa Rica, he is situated among emerging Latin American artists engaging gllobally while remaining connected to local realitiies. Rodríguez-Chaves reflects on how geographical and cultural distance reshaped his understanding of artistic responsibility and place.

BS: You studied in Berlin and later completed a Ph.D. at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. How have those experiences abroad shaped the way you think about context and artistic practice in Costa Rica?

ERC: Living and studying abroad was fundamental. Beyond the cliché response — that it “opened my mind” and freed me from many prejudices — what had the greatest impact was that it strengthened the confidence in myself. I understood that many of the limitations, personal and collective, stem from our own perceptions.

Emmanuel Rodriguez-Chaves, Eidolon (Golem), 2025, Oil on canvas, 164.6 x 126.4 cm | 64.8 x 49.8 in.

His practice also extends into co-directing abra.espacio, a contemporary art space in San José that supports experimentation and dialogue across disciplines, and provides a platform for emerging Latin American artists to present work in conversation with regional and international contexts.

BS: How does managing independent art spaces like abra.espacio feed into your work as an artist?

ERC: abra.espacio has always been a collective project. In early 2023, Montserrat Mesalles — the founder — invited me to collaborate with her. It was a generous and uncommon gesture: it is rare to find people with the openness, resources and willingness to initiate projects of this kind. Soon after, Luciano Goizueta joined the team. He is an artist with extensive experience managing independent spaces such as Temporal, salita_temporal, and Equilátero, and had a significant influence on my work when I was at university.

Later, Oriana Capra came on board as curator after working in international institutions including David Zwirner in the United States. Her involvement has greatly strengthened the research dimension and the follow-up with artists, and she has been an essential support in the day-to-day running of the space.

Emmanuel Rodriguez-Chaves, Replica II (Jackie), 2024, Oil on canvas, 66 x 55 cm | 26 x 21.7 in.

Abra was born out of a need to create spaces for emerging and established artists, providing them with the basic conditions to develop their proposals, and to contribute to a broader ecosystem alongside institutional and private initiatives.

Being part of Abra has opened many doors for me and provided a stable workspace in Central San José — something rare in Costa Rica. Co-managing the space involves a significant investment of time and resources: planning, installing, visiting artists, and more. Although this work is done with love, it also requires sacrifices. Finding a balance is an ongoing challenge, but I am gradually defining these aspects more clearly. It is also important to me that the space acts as a beacon in a time of intense polarisation.

If we want the artistic ecosystem to work for everyone, we need to build it collectively, opening ourselves to diverse proposals and avoiding insularity. This approach fosters a more inclusive and plural context and, at the same time, encourages art collecting, helping to stimulate a market that is sorely needed in Costa Rica — a country with a wealth of talented and promising artists.

BS: What are you currently working on, and what ideas are you interested in exploring next?

ERC: I am currently working on two solo exhibitions scheduled for next year — the first since 2019, and the first in Costa Rica since 2017. The project is provisionally titled Anamorphosis: Pequeñas Fracturas.

One of its core themes is the crisis of imagination that characterises our time. This crisis, fuelled by narrative structures inherited from the past, has contributed to the closure of possibilities for imagining alternative futures.

Uncertainty about the future, and the very conditions for its possibility, have become central concerns. These issues have been widely discussed by contemporary thinkers, who point to a broader phenomenon: our growing inability to imagine beyond the limits of the present. Both elements —uncertainty and a lack of imagination — are deeply tied to the realm of fiction, particularly to the philosophical strand of science fiction.

Closing thoughts

Emmanuel Rodriguez-Chaves, Montaña, Oil on canvas, 132 x 106 cm

Rodríguez Chaves’s reflections reveal an artist committed and engaged with the conditions under which art is made, shown and interpreted across Costa Rica and the wider Latin American art scene. His role as artist and co-director at abra.espacio continues to strengthen the conversations shaping Costa Rica’s contemporary art scene and the wider community of emerging Latin American artists.

We’re looking forward to seeing how his next body of work develops, expanding his exploration of image and ideology. In the meantime, Fulgor — on view now at abra.espacio in San José — exemplifies the kind of dialogue the space promotes.

You can also visit Emmanuel’s MÍRAME artist page to learn more about his practice and upcoming projects, and to discover other emerging Latin American artists in the gallery’s programme.

Thank you, Emmanuel for taking the time to chat with us!

MÍRAME Contact Information:

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At MÍRAME Fine Art, our focus is on contemporary artists influencing Costa Rica’s presence within the wider Latin American art scene. We aim to build connections between artists, collectors and audiences, creating space for the evolving creative communities in the region.

Emmanuel Rodriguez-Chaves | Emerging Latin American Artists