Kylee Pastore Asirvatham
Jose de Jesus Rodriguez
Art
Assistant Professor
Bio
Jose de Jesus Rodriguez (b. Salinas, CA) works with an array of painting and printmaking media and techniques. He holds an MFA in Painting/Printmaking from the Yale School of Art and a BA in Fine Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor in the Art Department at the City College of New York. Since 2022, he has served as a Fresco Instructor at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, where he was also a participant in 2017.
1. What questions, ideas, or creative concerns are at the center of your work right now?
Over the last couple of years, I've been returning to Mexico to help my parents repair my father's family home. The original structure is built of adobe, with additional layers of ceramic brick and cement now visible where repairs have accumulated over generations. This intergenerational material accumulation—its porosity, its visible history of repair—resonates with my current material concerns around surface, support, and plaster.
2. What drew you to CCNY and to teaching within the Division of Humanities and the Arts?
I've spent the majority of my professional career committed to working in New York public schools. Learning more about CCNY's continual commitment to serving the dynamic and diverse communities of New York City is something I feel deeply aligned with, and I look forward to being part of it. Its specific belief that art and the humanities function as a site to create a more equitable and empathetic society is something that also deeply resonates with me and that I hope to impart as an educator.
3. What do you hope CCNY students will experience, discover, or reconsider in your classroom?
I hope students leave with a strong foundation in the formal and technical aspects of painting and drawing. Alongside this, I hope they leave with an excitement for image-making, paired with a deep consideration of the historical and material context surrounding their interests and their making.
4. How has a particular text, artwork, mentor, place, or experience shaped the direction of your work?
The first things that came to mind were being a monitor at my undergraduate print shop, working as a community muralist, and my summer at Skowhegan. I've been lucky to have thoughtful and caring peers and professors in each of these settings—and it's the close friendships that follow that keep pushing, inspiring, and shaping me, in and outside my studio practice.
5. What are you most excited to contribute to—or explore within—the intellectual and creative community at CCNY?
More broadly, I'm looking forward to the dialogues I'll have with future students and colleagues. One thing I hope to contribute is a fresco studio, where students can learn and practice the medium. It's a relatively esoteric painting process—one that can feel physically and logistically daunting at first—but I'd welcome the chance to share it with students in whatever capacity I can.