Candida Alvarez, Mostly Clear (detail), 2023. Acrylic, paint pen, glitter on linen; 72 x 84 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery. Photo: Bob.
Logan Lecture: Candida Alvarez
Candida Alvarez calls her paintings “chatty abstractions.” Comprising controlled fields of color, delicate mark-making, and seeping geometries, Alvarez’s paintings may contain bright and vivid tones or more somber hues that evoke a soliloquy and a mental landscape. Born from the artist’s close observations of her family—she grew up in a lively Puerto Rican household—and from everyday experience, these ebullient works recall the distant horizons as seen from her childhood home in a Brooklyn high-rise and describe its intimate interior. Lately, Alvarez has drawn inspiration from the tropical environment of Puerto Rico and her mother who had returned to live on the island before the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria in 2017 forced her to move.
This event is part of the 2024-25 Logan Lecture Series.
Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery. Photo: Chester Alamo Costello.
About the Artist
Candida Alvarez has had solo exhibitions of her work at Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; Chicago Cultural Center; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; and Queens Museum, New York. Her awards include a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (2019), a Mellon Foundation Latinx Artist Fellow (2022), Laura Owens and Luna Foundation Resident Artist at Studio of the South in Arles, France (2023), and a grant from the Trellis Art Fund (2024). Alvarez’s work is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; El Museo del Barrio, New York; Perez Art Museum Miami; San José Museum of Art; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. She is professor emerita at the School of the Art Insitute of Chicago and Alex Katz Chair in Painting at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York.
Learn more on her website, candidaalvarez.com.
Candida Alvarez, Clear, 2023. Flashe paint, paint pen on linen; 84 x 72 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery. Photo: Bob.
Candida Alvarez, Mostly Clear, 2023. Acrylic, paint pen, glitter on linen; 72 x 84 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery. Photo: Bob.
Candida Alvarez, Mostly Cloudy, 2023. Acrylic, paint pen, pencil, golda mica flakes on linen; 84 x 72 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery. Photo: Bob.
Candida Alvarez, Partly Cloudy, 2023. Acrylic, paint pen, glitter on linen; 84 x 72 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery. Photo: Bob.
Candida Alvarez, Skowhegan 1, 2023. Flashe paint on cotton; 25 x 25 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloch Gallery. Photo: Bob.
Candida Alvarez, Skowhegan 2, 2023. Flashe paint on cotton; 25 x 25 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloch Gallery. Photo: Bob.
Candida Alvarez, Skowhegan 3, 2023. Flashe paint on cotton; 25 x 25 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloch Gallery. Photo: Bob.
Candida Alvarez, Skowhegan 4, 2023. Flashe paint on cotton; 25 x 25 in. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloch Gallery. Photo: Bob.
Since 2007, the Logan Lecture Series at the Denver Art Museum has presented talks by over 120 contemporary artists. Organized by the Modern and Contemporary Art department, the series is made possible through the generous support of Vicki and Kent Logan.
