Now on view 'Candida Alvarez: Multihyphenate' at Monique Meloche Gallery
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Saturday, October 12, 2024


Now on view 'Candida Alvarez: Multihyphenate' at Monique Meloche Gallery
Installation view of Candida Alvarez: Multihyphenate at Monique Meloche Gallery, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, 2023. Photo: Robert Chase Heishman.



CHICAGO, IL.- Candida Alvarez: Multihyphenate, the artist’s second show with the gallery, is on view at Monique Meloche Gallery through January 6, 2024. This solo exhibition presents a series of new large-scale paintings on linen, intimate paintings on dinner napkins, and framed drawings. Alvarez’s complex and colorful works delicately balance abstraction and representation, interweaving the artist’s daily observations with material life. Multihyphenate represents a mashup of how experiences are accumulated and what stays with us, visualizing our evolving histories and the shapes that come from the world.

The exhibition’s origin begins with Alvarez’s mother, who has been living in the US since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. In a long-standing practice of capturing the world around her, Alvarez takes photos of anything interesting that catches her eye. Among her large inventory of inspiration are printed iPhone photos of her mother sitting: at a restaurant (a particular pose caught her eye), in her home (the sunlight hitting her cheek), at the doctor (the way she dressed that day), etc., which span her studio walls. Sitting, a gesture that the artist’s 93-year-old mother frequently performs, lingers with Alvarez as she recalls Raphael’s The Madonna of the Chair, one of the first paintings she remembers seeing as a child, a coveted reproduction on her mother’s well-worn bible. Watching her mother through a photo lens, the shape of the relationship builds into a formal image and the photos become reassembled into paintings; Alvarez’s mother embodied. Sitting allows one to linger, which the artist finds comfort in, granting space to discover something mysteriously wonderful. The studio hosts a blooming orchid plant, an avocado tree, and beyond that, the tranquil rural Michigan landscape on which the artist’s studio sits, eliciting memories of the vista from her late father’s workshop in Puerto Rico. This new body of work was birthed in the studio and continued through two residencies at the LUMA Foundation in Arles, France in April and at Skowhegan in Maine this summer, marking Alvarez’s return as a mentor 42 years after her first residency there. Together, these bits and pieces become the compositional building blocks for her paintings and drawings, hybrid spaces ripe with color and pattern.

Amongst a series of distinct large kaleidoscopic paintings, ten small works on Yupo paper hold space for drawing. Titled Arles Drawings, the works capture the artist’s time in the south of France. For Alvarez, drawing is essential, it is every day, it is the first thing you learn as a child, and it always informs her paintings. Drawing is the artist’s starting point–direct, gestural, primal, mark making. It affords the freedom to use line as a beginning point, from which color interjects. Drawing concretizes and then slips away as color fills the atmosphere, a call and response shaped by intuition. Accumulations of moves turn into visual material, a language of shapes and colors. Shape is metamorphosized from light, sound, a plant, a body, a sculpture, a mother, a daughter, Raphael’s Madonna, orchids, the French countryside; it’s all those things and not just one thing which become her work. It’s the multihyphenate personality of the painter and the drawer which gives permission for these collisions to happen in a way the artist can control.

Multihyphenate showcases Alvarez’s methodology, always flexible, imaginative, and fueled by an unrelenting curiosity with the world around her. It’s the living part, the love part, the trusting part, the multiples that accumulate together to shape the way we see the world. Moreover, it’s simply allowing painting to speak on its own terms, away from the hierarchy of what painting should be about, it’s the possibility to create portraiture through abstraction. For Alvarez, it’s living palimpsest.

Candida Alvarez

Candida Alvarez is a conceptual artist whose wide-ranging practice spans sculpture, collage, abstraction, and figuration, with materials ranging from fabric, acrylic paint, enamel, and PVC mesh. Her abstract paintings are imbued with both personal and formal aspects that evolve through her relationship to color, light, and architectural elements. When creating each image, Alvarez engages in what she calls “an active search,” exploring the world around her with unremitting curiosity, investing thoughtful attention into that which is often deemed ordinary. Her paintings begin with an underlying drawn structure released as color is applied. Sometimes the structure can peek through with the linen on which the painting sits. The color is finally what holds the painting to the surface.

Alvarez (b.1955, New York, NY) received her MFA from Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT (1997) and taught painting at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago for 20 years. Emeritus Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Monique Meloche Gallery
Multihyphenate
On View Through January 6, 2024










Today's News

December 12, 2023

Derek Fordjour's cabinet of wonders

Ernest and Ella Brummer Collection quadruples estimate selling prices in Hindman's auction

Getty acquires three captivating paintings

Painting by Sir William Nicholson (1872-1949) coming to sale at Olympia Auctions

A breathtaking private French collection of nine Pre and Post WW2 French classics to be offered at Osenat

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts welcomes Elie Glyn as new Director of Exhibition Design and Production

Now on view 'Candida Alvarez: Multihyphenate' at Monique Meloche Gallery

Gallerie d'Italia's tribute to Joseph Rebell and the enchanting beauty of 19th-century Naples'

Who's a 'Colonizer'? How an old word became a new weapon

'IX' solo exhibition of large canvases by Richard Zinon on view at Cadogan Gallery

A world map with no national borders and 1,642 animals

Arms & Armour sale at Olympia Auctions ends the year with strong prices

Royal College of Art announces Pokémon Scholars for 2023

Maria Emilia Martin, creator of Public Radio's 'Latino USA,' dies at 72

CCP and MMCA present "Wonders and Witness: Contemporary Photography from Korea"

'Bzzz' turns art forms of solo virtuosity into a group affair

Review: In 'How to Dance in Ohio,' making autism sing

Jon Fosse wants to say the unsayable

Phillips expands 20th Century & Contemporary Art leadership team in Asia

28th edition of miart in Milan aims to confirm central role in art market and expand boundries

'Body Sculpture' new animatronic sculpture commissioned for the National Gallery's collection

Somerset House Studios announces the relaunch of project space G31

Gordon Parks's mid-century aesthetic exhibition curated by 2022 Genevieve Young Fellow Nicole R. Fleetwood now open

Luxembourg Pavilion welcomes over 102,000 visitors at the 18th Biennale di Venezia International Architecture Exhibition

Are Online Dating Apps Worth the Journey - Are They Selling Hope or Forgiveness?

Inside the Gaming Industry: A Deep Dive into the Latest Trends and Innovations

High Impact Wall Trends You Should Know

Effortless Personalization: Transform Phone Pics into Cherished Photo Prints

The Essential Guide to Domestic Wire Transfers: What You Need to Know




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful