Manuel Alvarez (°2003, Santiago De Cali, Colombia) makes drawings, paintings, photos and drawings. By examining the ambiguity and origination via retakes and variations, Alvarez tries to increase the dynamic between audience and author by objectifying emotions and investigating the duality that develops through different interpretations.
His drawings question the conditions of appearance of an image in the context of contemporary visual culture in which images, representations and ideas normally function. By studying sign processes, signification and communication, he makes work that deals with the documentation of events and the question of how they can be presented. The work tries to express this with the help of physics and technology, but not by telling a story or creating a metaphor.
His works are often classified as part of the new romantic movement because of the desire for the local in the unfolding globalized world. However, this reference is not intentional, as this kind of art is part of the collective memory. By emphasising aesthetics, he makes work that generates diverse meanings. Associations and meanings collide. Space becomes time and language becomes image.
His works sometimes radiate a cold and latent violence. At times, disconcerting beauty emerges. The inherent visual seductiveness, along with the conciseness of the exhibitions, further complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning. With Plato’s allegory of the cave in mind, he creates work through labour-intensive processes which can be seen explicitly as a personal exorcism ritual. They are inspired by a nineteenth-century tradition of works, in which an ideal of ‘Fulfilled Absence’ was seen as the pinnacle.
His works never shows the complete structure. This results in the fact that the artist can easily imagine an own interpretation without being hindered by the historical reality. By referencing romanticism, grand-guignolesque black humour and symbolism, he seduces the viewer into a world of ongoing equilibrium and the interval that articulates the stream of daily events. Moments are depicted that only exist to punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic meaning in everyday life.
His works are an investigation into representations of (seemingly) concrete ages and situations as well as depictions and ideas that can only be realized in drawing. Manuel Alvarez currently lives and works in Manizales .
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