Alvar Mena

Question 1: Can you describe your creative process from conception to completion? What sources of inspiration do you draw upon most frequently in your work?

Usually, my work starts from a more or less iconic reference. In recent years, I have been moving between classical mythology, Judeo-Christianity, and contemporary popular culture and memes. I generally use this theme as an excuse, but for my work, the narrative (or concept) is important only at the beginning and the end of the piece. During the core of the pictorial process, I try to forget conventional languages to focus on the pure and abstract plastic process, textures, registers, composition, structure, etc. It is only at the end that I recover the narrative, which always ends up being different from the original idea. Thus, although they may seem like separate worlds, in my pictorial process, abstract thought and material are necessarily linked to the narrative/cultural/referential components.

Question 2: How has your style and approach to art evolved over the years? Are there any particular moments or experiences that significantly influenced your artistic development?

Just as in our lives we learn things and change our opinions and focus countless times, I believe my work must change; it is logical and organic. Trying to maintain specific aesthetic or graphic resources when they do not appear naturally at that moment seems to me the best path toward emptiness and frustration as an artist. Over approximately 15 years, I have changed my discourse and techniques many times, moving from painting to tattooing, from tattooing to printing, then to sculpture, and back to painting again. Each change has been driven by the need to express each thing in the way I consider most appropriate. Perhaps the period that has taught me the most and helped me understand both my creative process and how it dialogues with my life has been the years I dedicated solely to tattooing, a discipline I see as a means of solving a graphic problem proposed by someone other than myself. This need for dialogue with another has taught me to use external elements in a practical and effective way practically and effective, tools that are extremely useful when applied to painting, especially when I encounter creative stagnation.

Question 3: What messages or emotions do you aim to convey through your art? How do you hope your audience will interpret and connect with your work?

I see art as a critical tool that, ultimately, can help us understand the socio-historical-economic moment we are trying to live in. With that in mind, I try to focus on both the abstract process and the narrative of every image. The cultural elements that I reference in my work respond to this need to frame within this particular context of unbalanced ecosystems, hyper-aggressive economic dynamics, overpopulation, overstimulation, etc., from my particular point of view based on my social and cultural background. I do not try to answer any universal questions; however, I find myself supporting, either on purpose or by accident, some philosophical streams that focus on solving these issues (as philosophy has done since the beginning). So, as people living in the same era, especially in this one where culture is a massive confluence of so many elements that paradoxically merge into a dangerous homogeneous surface, we need to share particular ideas in order to understand our reality and ourselves.