DANIEL RIOS RODRIGUEZ: OPEN THIS WALL
10.25.25—10.04.26
Ruby City presents Open This Wall, a year-long solo exhibition by Texas artist Daniel Rios Rodriguez, on view at Studio in Chris Park from October 25, 2025, through October 4, 2026. Bringing together twelve years of paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures, Open This Wall traces a defining period in Rodriguez’s career—from his return to San Antonio in 2013 after years in New York City to his 2025 appointment as Assistant Professor of Painting at the Meadows School of Art at Southern Methodist University. The exhibition’s title, borrowed from one of the artist’s paintings inspired by a dream, speaks to his openness to transformation—both creative and personal. Installed within Ruby City’s 2,200-square-foot Studio, the exhibition explores themes central to Rodriguez’s practice—portraits, dreams, and reflections on everyday life—and includes a site-specific wall drawing, the artist’s first, which wraps around the entire gallery, creating an immersive and contemplative experience.
Known primarily as a painter, Rodriguez blends abstraction and representation with found materials, producing symbolic, emotive images that balance specificity with openness to interpretation. His compositions capture the rhythm of lived experience—a run at dusk, the heat of a Texas summer, quiet time with loved ones—alongside surreal dreamscapes dense with metaphor and emotion. Everyday encounters along the San Antonio River, its flora and fauna, and the artist’s inner life intertwine to form works that are deeply personal yet universally resonant. His Mexican-American heritage also plays a defining role, reflected through the use of pre-Columbian glyphs and iconography, traditional Mexican crafts, and Spanish-language titles that root his work in a broader cultural lineage.
Throughout this twelve-year period, Rodriguez refined his painting style, developed a distinct visual vocabulary, and expanded his practice to include drawing, printmaking, ceramics, and mixed media. Found materials gathered during walks through his neighborhood often form the basis of the handcrafted frames that surround his paintings, allowing his images to extend beyond the picture plane and giving them a votive, totemic quality. This exhibition highlights a fertile period of experimentation and growth, shaped by the artist’s time in San Antonio, where he forged a practice grounded in close observation and lived experience.
15 x 10 in.; Courtesy of Holly Fogle.
“Daniel’s work offers a poetic exploration of everyday life that is both specific and expansive,” said Elyse A. Gonzales, Director of Ruby City. “Open This Wall not only showcases the artist’s extraordinary output over more than a decade but also honors the importance of San Antonio in shaping his unique vision.”
Open This Wall reflects Rodriguez’s ongoing search for timeless, universal subjects through his singular blend of metaphor, symbolism, and material experimentation. It stands as both a celebration of his achievements and a farewell to a city that has profoundly shaped his artistic journey. Ruby City invites the public to join in the opening celebration on Saturday, October 25, 2025, fbeginning with a gallery walkthrough with the artist and Ruby City Director, Elyse A. Gonzales, from 2–3 PM, followed by a public reception featuring light bites, drinks, and entertainment from 3–5 PM at 111 Camp Street.
About the Artist
Daniel Rios Rodriguez (b. 1978, Killeen, TX; lives Dallas, TX) has exhibited his work in solo and group presentations at White Columns, New York City; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York City; Artpace, San Antonio; Camden Arts Centre, London; Cooper Cole, Toronto; Seven Sisters, Houston; and Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, among others. He was a 2018 Artist in Residence at the Chinati Foundation and received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2013. Following studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, he earned his MFA from the Yale School of Art. His work is held in the collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art and the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire. Rodriguez was recently appointed Assistant Professor of Painting at Meadows School of Art, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.