RF Alvarez
Region: West
My work deals with impermanence, indulgence, and belonging: three interconnected pillars of the queer experience. I am a gay man whose father immigrated from Mexico and whose mother comes from a family of cowboys. My work responds to these heritages by showcasing the fallacy of masculinity central to both. I create images of a world where things are beautiful, temporary, unfurled, and tender.
I show men in love. I show groups of queer friends drinking and talking. I show flowers in full bloom, at the edge of wilting, fighting for their own beauty. And I show windswept landscapes of the place I am from: a place of deep thunderstorms and dried grass and conflict. I hope, by presenting these images in often monotone, shadowy compositions, to present a vision of queer resilience.
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