We are pleased to announce the launch of Texas-based artist @rf_alvarez’s online solo exhibition ‘The Invitation’ (link in bio to view) ✨ ‘The Invitation’ gives the viewer insight in the queer lived experience of the Texas and American landscapes of Alvarez's origins. The grandson of a cowboy and the son of a Mexican immigrant, Alvarez’s practice explores heritages of gender expectations and societal norms in relation to the queer body and its community. In this new series of figurative works, Alvarez invites us to reflect upon intimacy through his deeply personal portrayal of queer lives, experimenting with the use of material to convey layered meaning and nuance. Alvarez works in acrylic, building up from raw canvas, to create surfaces that are craggy, textured, and teeming with movement underneath compositions that are handled, by contrast, with delicacy. Alvarez describes the process as, “a physical manifestation of the experience of suppression and memory. These works are, in a way, an excavation.” Similarly, in his subject matter Alvarez chooses to focus his eye on moments of resilience, friendship, and beauty – a contrast to an increasingly inhospitable environment. ~~~ #RFAlvarez The Invitation, 2022 Acrylic on canvas 152 x 183 cm. / 60 x 72 in.