ALVARO is Home

 

I describe my creative practice as a form of magic. I am a multidisciplinary artist who uses symbolism and iconography stemming from my spirituality as a Witch/Bruja. My work branches across different modes of art making from painting to sculpture and performance art, all stemming from the ability to take my energy and transferring it into my artwork. I am worldbuilding each time I create a new work of art. To keep that sense of worldbuilding I have developed a visual language and aesthetic that encompasses me as an artist. This visual language and aesthetic forms to unify and bring all my modes of art making into one centered universe. In my oil paintings this visual language consists of mysterious moody warm skies and energy that brings in the audience to peak through a window of a setting they can be teleported to. I work with landscapes of warm reds, browns desserts and emptiness but with a sense of surrealism and in context extends broader in its meaning. Symbolically, the deserts depicted in my work are used as a dreamlike blank slate, waiting to be filled with knowledge and information. Expressing emotion, the self, silence, wood textures, the color red, the divine feminine and masculine, witches/brujas are some of the vocabularies that my ever-forming visual language and aesthetic consists of. I create sculptures from clay, found objects and wood, that explores the language of the hand and applying the hand as maker, healer, motion, emotion, gesture, signal, and tool. I use myself as the muse, the subject, and the influence; The hands and heads I sculpt directly reference my own hands and head. In speaking about the “self” the face is the most recognizable and indicator in identifying someone initially. Given the face is the most recognizable identifier of someone, I use this notion to explore myself image and as a tool of self-evaluation and reflection. My intent is to get to know myself and tell my own story. I use performance and my body as a medium to directly communicate emotion, motion, and movement. I command my body to throw itself on the floor, to stretch it in uncomfortable positions, physically commanding situations and gestures, emotional and mental pain as well as put it through the endurance of time. I often document my performances through video. I work with my body to perform stories about my life, memories, and feelings as well as a way to form healing rituals and come into terms of my life.