Daily life is Doug Alvarez’s muse. Beauty seems to emanate from decaying walls, strange people, old cars, strip malls and endless advertisements. In a world, which at first glance seems bleak at best, nature and sunlight manage to overcome negativity. Having grown up in Southern California during the 70s and 80s, Alvarez captures the sensibility of a simpler time and place, a counter balance to the evolving complexities of 21st century life. Utilizing a pallet knife to apply his paint, Alvarez creates distressed surfaces as a foundation for his stylized subjects. Exploring images of human contact with inanimate objects, the artist invites the viewer to ponder these strange interactions. Commonplace objects such as an ice cream cone or a skateboard or serve to represent positive solutions to the human dilemma. Regardless of the bleak situations depicted in his thought-provoking paintings, a metaphorical rainbow of happiness and sunlight seems to prevail. |