MAREO RODRÍGUEZ | The secret of life is learning how to die

When we look at the sky, we are contemplating the past of the cosmos: millions of years contained in celestial bodies that shine with their own light before slowly fading into darkness. That transition between light and shadow—that invisible center, latent at the core of the universe—is the central theme that Mareo Rodríguez (Mexico City, 1981) presents in Portals.

Mareo has taken hold of light and transformed it into matter through his work, guiding us on a journey that begins in the stars and descends into the depths of the Earth. He is an artist who observes the world with the eyes of a geologist, discovering in the Earth’s fractures a way to convey his sensitivity. His work becomes a tribute to nature itself.

To gaze at the stars is more than a biological act—it is a spiritual practice. This is where the essence of Rodríguez’s work, shaped through more than a decade of artistic practice, comes into focus.

Portals is also a wound. The transitions he proposes in each painting, installation, intervention, and audiovisual piece carry an aim to heal. In Malta, Rodríguez discovered a geological richness embedded in the structure of Valletta Contemporary, a museum housed in stone and full of cavities. By revealing these fissures, he uncovered both a wound and a path forward—a portal.

The act of opening and closing cracks, of opening and closing wounds, becomes metaphorical in this exhibition. Rodríguez merges the architecture of the space with his work, placing us at a center from which we can glimpse the essence he has drawn from the landscapes he has traversed—an essence that reveals the sublime and the magnificence of nature. Fragmentation—of territory, of spirit, of body—transforms into beams of light that meet the viewer along the path through Rituals, a show that distills the artist’s essence into a multisensory experience.

While each piece in the exhibition is unique, Portals functions as a spatial experience that activates relationships, associations, and resonances between them—not bound by a dominant historical perspective, but instead highlighting the creative process and the materiality of each work.

His paintings experiment with canvas and linen using acrylic, enamel, and gold leaf, creating the palette that defines his artistic language: a monochromatic universe illuminated by golden rays. Large-scale installations in polystyrene and light—both artificial LED and natural, filtering through the cracks of the building—converge to form a monumental fissure that expands within Valletta Contemporary.

Infinity—like the stars, like light or darkness, like the immensity of the unknown, which is nothing but life itself—takes shape in this portal, constructed by Rodríguez in the minimalist form of an ellipse, representing both beginning and end. Portals is an invitation to see from the other side, a perspective urgently needed in times when much of the world is immersed in darkness and chaos. There is a crack in everything—that is how the light gets in.