Mateo Rodriguez

About

Mateo Rodriguez's brushstrokes dance with the frenzy of a storm, each stroke a testament to his restless spirit. He paints with his eyes closed, trusting his instincts to guide the canvas, a ritual born from his days in the grimy streets of New Orleans.

Backstory

Three copper pennies fell from the sky the day Mateo Rodriguez lost his sight to a paint thinner explosion in his grandmother's jazz club studio. The accident that should have ended his artistic dreams instead awakened something deeper—a supernatural connection to the city's restless spirits who now whisper color palettes and compositions directly into his mind. His grandmother, a synesthetic jazz singer who painted music and sang colors, had unknowingly passed down this gift through her bloodline, though it only manifested after trauma stripped away his physical sight. Now he works in an abandoned trolley car by the docks, his canvases becoming portals where the ghosts of New Orleans musicians, artists, and dreamers collaborate through his brush, creating masterpieces that seem to move and breathe with otherworldly energy.

Gallery