Francisco Rodríguez is a Chilean painter based in London. Born in Santiago in 1989, he grew up in the years after Pinochet, and that time and place run through his work. He paints from memory: adolescence, loneliness, migration and political history, in scenes charged with role-play, implicit violence and a dark humour, often set at the hinge of the day, at sunrise or sunset, where the safety of an interior gives way to the threat of what lies outside.
His visual language is drawn from an unusually wide field, Japanese anime, Chinese woodblock prints, cinema and Latin American literature. He believes, in his own words, in the capacity of painting to communicate not information but experience, to turn something deeply personal into something another person can recognise as their own.
He studied painting at the Universidad de Chile before taking his MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. His work has been shown across three continents, with recent solo exhibitions at Baert Gallery in Los Angeles, White Space in Beijing and Cooke Latham in London, a solo presentation at Art Basel, and, early in his career, a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago. He was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2018. His paintings are held in public and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Long Museum and the X Museum in China, and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Chile.
Teaching has run alongside his painting from the start. He taught painting and drawing at the Universidad de Chile for five years, as assistant lecturer and then lecturer, and has since served as an external examiner for degree assessments in Santiago. What he brings to ESOP is a conviction close to the School’s own: that the strongest work comes not when a student is steered towards a result, but when they find the subject or question they genuinely care about, and the confidence to think through painting in a voice of their own.
Francisco Rodríguez (b. 1989, Santiago) lives and works in London. BFA Painting, Universidad de Chile; MFA, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. Represented by Cooke Latham Gallery, London.
Selected Curriculum Vitae
Education
MFA, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London
BFA Painting, Universidad de Chile, Santiago
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2026 Private Nightmares, Baert Gallery, Los Angeles
2025 Distant Star, White Space, Beijing
2024 The Night of the Day, Art Basel Statements, with White Space, Beijing
2023 The Weight of the Night, Cooke Latham Gallery, London
2022 The City and the Dogs, White Space, Beijing
2019 Midday Demon, Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles
2018 Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), Santiago
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Portrait of a Man, X Museum, Beijing
2018 Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London
Collections
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Long Museum, China
X Museum, Beijing
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC), Chile
DLA Piper Art Collection, and private collections internationally
Representation
Cooke Latham Gallery, London
For more on Francisco and his work
All pictures and images copyright of Ⓒ Francisco Rodríguez all rights reserved.