LISA ALVARADO

In producing these works, Alvarado has also been considering the use of metaphor to describe and articulate our relationship to time, as well as the existence of different conceptions of this metaphorical, and often spatial, relationship. A compelling parallel can be made between philosopher Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History (caught in a storm with his face towards the past and continually blown into a future he cannot see) and the linguistic structures of the Aymara of the Bolivian Andes. The Aymara conceive of the past as in front of them, with older events positioned further away, and the future behind. This is the opposite of most European languages in which we understand the future as before us and extending out.

A new element introduced in Spiral Yellow is the use of found fabric collaged and sewn into the work’s surfaces, further integrating textile into the paintings and simultaneously expanding the language of the hanging works with a set of assemblage qualities. Alvarado’s use of sewing has opened up possibilities in this regard, allowing her to incorporate vintage fabric found on her tour travels and in thrift shops. This new approach is connected to the Chicano theorist Tomás Ybarra-Frausto’s writing on Raschuche, a Mexican American make-shift assemblage aesthetic. As he writes in his essay Rasquachismo: a Chicano sensibility, 1989:

Resilience and resourcefulness spring from making do with what’s at hand (hacer rendir las cosas). This utilization of available resources makes for hybridization, juxtaposition and integration. Rasquachismo is a sensibility attuned to mixtures and confluence. Communion is preferred over purity.

This attitude and resourcefulness come out of necessity but also have a compelling relationship to time and value. Objects of little or no value, or things which are often defunct find a new use. A new future is brought into being from the wreckage of the past, as Benjamin terms it – one that makes ancestral connections and incorporates historical perspectives.

As foregrounded by the exhibition title, many of the works have yellow fabric backings and the colour permeates the compositions of several pieces too. For Alvarado, it serves as both a cautionary colour but also a representation of energy, revitalisation and change. These latter qualities speak to the artist’s conception of painting as a guiding of liquid material into a solid state. It can be understood as a recording device – like the growth rings of trees, a witness to time, change and human fragility.