Mariano E. Rodríguez is a professional photographer, filmmaker, writer, theater director, self-taught painter, and holds a degree in Philosophy. He was born in Paraná, Entre Ríos, Argentina, in 1983.
In 1997, he began his studies at the Association of Professional Photographers of Entre Ríos (AFPER), where he graduated as a professional photographer. He continued his studies at Una Foto Escuela, specializing in artistic and advertising photography, as well in antique processes such Gum Bichromate, Van Dyke Brown, pinhole photography, emulsion composition, manual black-and-white and color film printing, the chemical composition of photographic films and papers. He further specialized in the Zone System under Ansel Adams’ theory. Later, he moved to Buenos Aires, where he began working at the fashion and advertising studio “Dress & Body,” under the direction of photographer Fernando Lipina. During his stay in the Capital, he studied Image and Color Theory at the Argentine School of Photography, earning the title of Technician in Photography and Imaging. In the following years, he studied Film Directing at the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts in Santa Fe, discipline he complemented with Theater Directing at the Institute “Prof. Colegio Constancio Carminio” in Paraná, Entre Ríos. Currently, Mariano Rodríguez is VP Manager at Enter To My World, a company based in London, UK, where he leads application development and design. With a background in Philosophy, he has focused his career on research and the publication of essays addressing contemporary issues. Mariano combines his interest in technology with critical thinking, allowing him to integrated perspective.
In 2007, editorial ELALEPH S.R.L. published La Curva del Muslo, his first poetry book, reedited in 2019. This new edition preserves the original intensity of its poetic and reflective voice while incorporating subtle stylistic refinements that enrich its reading. The text was carefully revised, with special attention to linguistic harmony, clarity of expression, and the musicality of image. The editorial design were also updated, presenting a more polished, sober, and elegant edition. A renewed classic, now offered in a version that further exalts the beauty of the minimal, the ephemeral, and the hidden. In theater, he wrote and directed two plays: El ideal del adversario and El hombre inmoral, the latter staged at the independent theater La Sonrisa de Beckett during the autumn of 2010 in Rosario. In 2009, he designed and produced the digital art and culture magazine Bello & Sublime Magazine, with the aim of promoting the work of artists from Paraná, Entre Ríos. Among them were graphic designers Juan Barbagelata, Fabia Estamatti, and Natalia Hallam, painter Javier Solari, and writer María Elena Barbieri. Has filmed short films and worked as director of photography in film productions. Throughout his career, Mariano has participated in individual and collective photography exhibitions in Chile, Cuba, Spain, Paris, and Argentina. In 2010, he presented the series El Ensayo – El lado íntimo del Ballet, inspired by Edgar Degas’ The Ballet Class, at the Juan L. Ortiz Cultural Center in Paraná, Entre Ríos. The photographs featured students from the Municipal Ballet of the Teatro 3 de Febrero, directed by Alexia Loskin. The exhibition was presented in audiovisual format and accompanied by a live performance of the ballet company. It was declared of cultural interest by the Honorable City Council of Paraná (Presidential Decree No. 188). Much of Mariano’s work has been acquired by national and international collectors. His works are part of Aella Image Center in Paris, France; the Ibero-American Photographic Library in Havana, Cuba; and the Image Center Los Lavaderos in Tenerife, Spain. their photographs have illustrated catalogs and books, notably Nudes Around the World, edited by Peter Delius and Jacek Slaski, published by Bruckmann Verlag, Munich. He also participated in technical assistance workshops for artists and art teachers, led by Elda Harrington and organized by the Federal Investment Council. Spanish critic Javier Cabrera wrote of his work:
“The Argentine Mariano Rodríguez derives convergent gazes focused on portraiture with a subtlety that leads one to contemplate equidistant points of the same subject. In his work, subjects invade the lens to assert their differentiation. ‘Illuminated’ characters occupy the focal point and affirm: ‘because I stand out from the rest, I belong to my tribe, because I am…’”
In 2014, he abandoned photographic and audiovisual production entirely and earned his degree in Philosophy. In this field, he has published essays on the problem of evil, Nietzsche’s conception of history, the influence of Greek rhetoric on modern discourse, and the origins of monotheism and polytheism in historical religions, among others. He attended seminars on Religious and Philosophical Conflicts in Late Antiquity, taught by Doctors in Philosophy Juan Carlos Alby, Diego Santos, and Pablo Ubierna (Res. CD. No. 1539/2017). He also participated in the Epistemology and Metaphor conference, declared of Academic Interest and coordinated by Dr. Esther Díaz. He was a speaker at the Fundamental Shakespeare English Literature conference, organized by SEU and Human Rights and approved by Res. 1319/2016 FHAYCS, where he presented the translation and study of Robert Browning’s 1835 poem Paracelsus. At present, Mariano Rodríguez has not produced new photographic or audiovisual material. In an interview for IMMAGO MAGAZINE, he declared that he had destroyed all his work, including prints, digital files, and negatives. The images shown in the sections Photography and Phone were retrieved from different portals that still preserve part of his oeuvre. He also decided to withdraw from the artistic field, arguing that contemporary art has lost its aesthetic character, deviating into the absurd and the banal. According to the author, today’s art has been reduced to a gesture that can only provoke repulsion in the viewer.
In 2014, he leave photographic and audiovisual production entirely and earned his degree in Philosophy. In this field, he has published essays on the problem of evil, Nietzsche’s conception of history, the influence of Greek rhetoric on modern discourse, and the origins of monotheism and polytheism in historical religions, among others. He attended seminars on Religious and Philosophical Conflicts in Late Antiquity, taught by Doctors in Philosophy Juan Carlos Alby, Diego Santos, and Pablo Ubierna (Res. CD. No. 1539/2017). He also participated in the Epistemology and Metaphor conference, declared of Academic Interest and coordinated by Dr. Esther Díaz. He was a speaker at the Fundamental Shakespeare English Literature conference, organized by SEU and Human Rights and approved by Res. 1319/2016 FHAYCS, where presented the translation and study of Robert Browning’s 1835 poem entitled, Paracelsus.
At present, Mariano Rodríguez has not produced new photographic or audiovisual material. In an interview for IMMAGO MAGAZINE, he declared to have destroyed all his work, including prints, digital files, and negatives. The images shown in the sections Photography and Phone were recovered from different portals that still preserve part of his work. He also decided leave the artistic field, arguing that contemporary art has lost its aesthetic character, deviating into the absurd and the banal. According to the author, today’s art has been reduced to a gesture that can only provoke repulsion in the observer. In 2024, after years of exploring other artistic languages, Mariano returned to painting as returns to an intimate and forgotten territory. His canvases became stages where the human figure fractures and recomposes, displaced by strokes that do not seek to delineate but to question. In the series Strange Creatures, the body appears distorted, concealing within its stains and fragments a symbolic violence that does not immediately reveal itself but remains encrypted on the surface. Each work is an echo of the original gesture, preserved with digital precision yet sustained in the fragility of the analog. The final piece rests upon an immaculate surface that, in its purity, grants the viewer the artist’s ultimate gesture of clemency. There, upon that technical altar simulating neutrality, an intimate dialogue is established —not with the eyes, but with the mind— a secret exchange between the creative mind and the created work. In 2025, he transferred his drawings onto canvas, offering a more visceral and material interpretation of those same strange and dehumanized universes. In this shift, what had once remained contained within the drawing now expands into a nearly physical, three-dimensional space where the creatures—no longer so strange—seem to come alive, refusing to obey any conventional structure. The transition from drawing to painting also symbolizes a movement toward an expanded understanding of the human psyche, toward the possibility of confronting the darkest emotions and thoughts from a more tangible place. In this ongoing cycle, Rodríguez not only continues his previous work but expands it into a profound reflection on the fragmentation of identity. The faces of his human figures, distorted and stripped of harmony, evoke the sense of a being no longer capable of recognizing itself in the mirror. The texture of the paint becomes palpable, like a trace left upon the canvas. This series was published in 2025 as a book titled The Threshold of Shadows, a catalogue-book accompanied by a critical essay on Rodríguez’s perspective on contemporary art. That same year, he published Fuego Fatuo, an epistolary short story of deep philosophical and poetic resonance whose epilogue connects the narrative with the play El Hombre Inmoral, an adaptation that—according to Rodríguez—allowed him to bring the essence of the original story to the stage. Shortly afterwards, he released Liturgia de los Condenados, the final work in the trilogy The Death of the Muses, which also includes Fuego Fatuo and El Hombre Inmoral. In this piece, he develops an existential duel between the archetypal figures Azrion and Edranea, whose intertwined voices create a space of mystical, erotic, and philosophical tension. To facilitate reading, he restructured the play into a narrative format, with the narration performed by theatre director Eleonora Moreau. Continuing this period of intense production, he later published his second poetry book, I Swear to Drag Her Across the Seas, in which he moves away from the central role of the feminine figure as his primary source of inspiration to address broader themes such as fragility, time, and the search for meaning in a world permeated by the ephemeral, combining a lyrical voice with a tension reminiscent of theatre. He subsequently added to this creative path the publication of ANHEDONIA, a work that functions simultaneously as a philosophical treatise, a hermetic grimoire, and a cartography of the inner abyss, available in both Spanish and English.
The trajectory of Mariano E. Rodríguez is defined by a constant movement between disciplines, a search that knows no limits and has taken him through photography, cinema, theater, writing, and philosophy with equal intensity. His work, always marked by critical restlessness and gestures of rupture, oscillates between the ephemeral and the enduring, between the intimacy of creation and the public exposure of art. Today, his work is testimony to a sensibility that refuses to limit itself to repeating languages, but rather transforms them, confronts them, and gives them new meaning. In this way, Mariano presents himself not only as a multifaceted creator, as well as a tireless explorer of the territories where art, philosophy, and life converge.
By Alexandra De Luca
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