The Madonna As Muse: The Paintings Of René Alvarado Coming To The San Angelo Museum September 11, 2008

The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts will open The Madonna as Muse: An Exhibition of Paintings by René Alvarado on September 11. This exhibition will present 24 contemporary and iconic paintings that use the mystical image of the Madonna to express the artist’s inner life, as well as exonerate many of the influential women in the artist’s life -- his mother, grandmothers, sisters and his San Angelo patron Eva Tucker. With richness of color and strong imagery, René uses cultural identity to approach universal themes.

Fueled by the sentiments of his roots, these autobiographical paintings with literal and mysterious meaning represent the artist’s most mature paintings to date, spanning from 2003 to 2008. Some, like the large scale portraits, Piedad and Soledad (2005), pay homage to his grandmothers. Others, like the portrait Madonna with Crane and Fish (2008) -- surrounded by images of a fish, calla lily and fruit – remain strange, conceptual and enigmatic.

“Heir to a tradition of figurative painting in Mexico, his art is personal and idiosyncratic. René has put a contemporary stamp on the spirit of narrative art that is all his own,” said Jim Edwards, Curator.

The complex symbolism and limited palette saturating René’s work is a creative mix of adopted and personal iconography. Borrowing images and color symbolism from Mexican culture, the spiritualism of West Texas, Catholicism, and René’s past, the artist constructs visual metaphors to express a magical and ethereal personal journal.

“I have come to realize that my work is defined both by my familial roots in northern Mexico and by the subtle, mystical environment of my adopted home in West Texas. My creative process is immersed in this dual identity; I paint what I feel, that which is me,” said René Alvarado.

Born in 1972 near Torreon, Coahuila, the artist René Alvarado came to San Angelo, Texas at age 10 with his parents, five sisters and three brothers. The young painter had a rich childhood in Mexico, and then developed as an artist in his adopted West Texas home of San Angelo. Young René’s ability to draw and his interest in art helped foster an attachment to his past life in Mexico and his new life in Texas. Later at the San Antonio Fine Arts Institute, one professor impressed upon René the importance of concept and theme, over technique. This idea grew to inspire René to see painting as a metaphorical interpretation of mood and emotion. Today, René paints in one of the most beautiful artist’s studios imaginable. Several years ago he purchased a former neo-gothic Lutheran Church located in a tree-lined residential neighborhood in San Angelo, Texas. This white-washed sanctuary studio only heightens one’s sense that as an artist, René is in the throngs of a spiritual quest that he will pursue for many generations.

San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts is recognized as one of the finest smaller museums in the country in terms of its architecture, collections, and programming. Since opening in 1985, the museum has since featured over 280 exhibits and remains a cultural highlight of West Texas. The museum houses over 200 pieces of American and Asia ceramics and dozens of paintings primarily by Texas artists in its permanent collection. In conjunction with The Madonna as Muse, SAMFA will open Time of Remembrance which draws on the museum’s collection of Colonial Mexican religious artifacts, santos, and retablos.

Official Website: http://www.samfa.org/exhibits.htm