Cuban-born artist Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova is a seeker. He mines mundane remnants of immigrants’ uncertain travel. He seeks out their unsettling and imperfect beauty. A cotton tank top discarded as temperatures soar. A plastic bag could double as a flimsy, unlikely suitcase.
In his solo show “State of Transition,” Dimensions Variable co-founder Rodriguez-Casanova draws inspiration from objects evoking immigrant travel across hostile boundaries.
Materials comprising the five sculptures here are reminders of such travel. His art often incorporates objects that could have been left behind.
Indistinct found photos integrated collage-like into his sculpture may stand for memories of places abandoned or encountered during hard-to-forget moments. The photos seem to show a rocky beach, a river skirting mountains, a chain-link fence enclosing an empty lot, an idyllic grassy field.
Rodriguez-Casanova endows his art with reminders of his own past, asserting that one of his biggest influences was his own immigration to Miami in 1980 as a child during the Mariel boatlift from Cuba.
