Gabriel Rojas

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA

Artist statement

Gabriel Rojas (born Buenos Aires, Argentina) is an American visual artist who draws from various languages of abstraction—including modernist painting, graffiti, and Andean textile design—to build layered compositions that navigate the complex psychological terrain between memory, identity, and inheritance. Inspired by his upbringing in the south and artistic collaborations in murals and music, Rojas creates brightly colored paintings which often combine abstraction and representation, drawing and painting, and collage and textiles in various non-traditional ways. His work is populated with imagery from language, diaristic doodles, and Andean motifs inspired by South American textiles and folklores he grew up with. Rojas’ work is driven by a process-based approach which he describes as “connecting memory with ritual through abstract painting,” a methodology that honors intuition as a form of ancestral knowledge. Rojas views his style of painting as a portal through which he can explore both his deep connection to his familial roots and his own personal belief systems. In weaving together multiple references through a process that continually re-purposes or expands itself, Rojas playfully embraces contradiction as a generative force: mapping the push and pull between cultural preservation and self-determination.

Artwork