Rodriguez studied at the Sorbonne in 1990. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute and his Master of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico.
The exhibition Tino Rodríguez: The Darkening Garden/El Jardin al Anochecer was featured at the San Jose Museum of Art in 2003.
A citizen of the world, Rodriguez rejects the seriousness and sterility of modernism for the fantastic iconographic wonders of postmodernism and post colonialism. In addition, his paintings – reflective but not literal, self-referential but not solely self-destructive – conjure events from his personal history in an attempt to engage the beholder in dialogue.
Thus, images of babies and fetuses as well as androgynous figures donning bridal veils populate his paintings, insisting that procreation, nurturing, creativity and beauty be the modus operandi open to all. The veils, in particular, are potent signifiers of his personal history. As a child, Rodriguez dressed up and danced in his sister’s first communion veil.
