Alvaro Alvarez
Alvaro Alvarez (born San Jose, Costa Rica, 1965), is an artist, working primarily as a painter. He is based in Melbourne, Australia.
Career, themes and style
Alvaro Alvarez's recent work combines painting and drawing, based on images from books, magazines and old calendars. After careful examination of this content, Alvarez recreates the imagery in his paintings using a methodical process of fine brushwork and soft lines. Layers of these techniques are often visible on the surface of a finished work where Alvarez has erased evidence of early mark making to begin again, giving the artworks an ethereal quality.[1] As the Sydney Morning Herald writes of Alvarez's practice, "Alvaro Alvarez creates rippling, vibrant paint and texta abstractions from images found online."[2]
Alvarez has exhibited his work internationally and throughout Australia and currently practices at Melbourne studio Arts Project Australia. Alvarez is an important figure in Australian outsider art and has exhibited his works across Melbourne Arts Centre, the Museum of Everything in London[3] and Campbelltown Arts Centre and Monash University Museum of Art.[4]
Solo exhibitions
2005
Alvaro Going Solo, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne
Selected group exhibitions
2016
Signature Style, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne
Tell 'em I'm dead, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne
2015
It takes more than 140 characters to write a novel, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne
Home, locations around Melbourne Arts Centre, Melbourne
2014
Renegades: Outsider Art, The Arts Centre Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise
Darebin Art Show, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, Bundoora
2013
Repeat. Restate…Reiterate, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne
Walking the Line, Arts Project Australia Gallery, Melbourne
2011
Exhibition #4, Museum of Everything, London
Moving Galleries, Flinders Street Station, Melbourne
2010
Melbourne Art Fair 2010, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne
2009
Snapshot, ACGA Gallery, Federation Square, Melbourne
2008
Pearls of Arts Project Australia - The Stuart Purves Collection, Ivan Dougherty
Gallery, College of Fine Arts, UNSW, Sydney
Without Borders: Outsider Art in an Antipodean Context, Monash University
Museum of Art, Melbourne, and Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney
2005
Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
Home Sweet Home: Works from the Peter Fay Collection, National Gallery of Australia Travelling exhibition: Tamworth City Gallery, Tamworth NSW, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand
2004
2nd Annual Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art, Chicago, United States Hosted by the Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
2001
Face-Up, Idiom Studio, Wellington, New Zealand
Collections
Alvaro Alvarez's work is represented in private collections as well as in the National Gallery of Victoria, the Stuart Purves Collection[5] and the National Gallery of Australia.[6]
References
- "Alvaro Alvarez - Artist Profile". Arts Project Australia. Archived from the original on 9 April 2016.
- Rule, Dan (15 November 2016). "Our pick of what's showing in galleries around town". The Sydney Morning Herald.
- "Exhibition #4". The Museum of Everything.
- "Without Borders Outsider Art in An Antipodean Context". Creativity Explored. 2008.
- Purves, Stuart (2007). Pearls of Arts Project Australia : Stuart Purves collection. Melbourne; Australia: Australian Galleries. ISBN 9780975124567.
- "Alvaro ALVAREZ". National Gallery of Australia Collection.
External links
- Arts Project Australia: http://www.artsproject.org.au/
- Artist Page: https://web.archive.org/web/20160409173925/http://artsproject.org.au/artworks/6272/Alvaro%20Alvarez