RICARDO DE ALVARO

"An unmistakable and individual style. 

His compositions, with great oneiric beauty, reveal moments of stillness, scenes stopped in time, unveiling the soul and eros."

Daniela Hoffmann

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I am a self-taught painter and have had artistic inclinations since childhood.

I won my first painting competition at 4 years old. An Interior Designer, I graduated first in my class in EADE. I worked for a period designing for an important Dutch brand, combining this activity with my painting. For almost 15 years, I dedicated myself entirely to the education and parenting of my son. I have investigated the world of theatre as a scenographer and costume designer. My pictorial work has taken a new direction since 2010.

 

I have been in love with Egyptian art since childhood; its expressive strength, the vibration of the figure's energy in its hieratic style and the use of descriptive elements only when necessary for the narrative, as well as the absence of backgrounds. Here I found ties to Greco-Latin art which I could not ignore; the serenity of the Kuroi, the sensuality of Praxiteles, the synthesis in the depiction of scenes on Greek vases, the Pompaii frescoes from La Villa dei Misteri...

I feel profound admiration for the work of great Maestros like Hippomenes and Atalanta – Guido Reni –, The Pietà – José de Ribera –, The Empire of Flora - Nicolas Poussin -, The angel rolling away the stone from the sepulchre - William Blake –, Beethoven Frieze – Gustav Klimt - ... 

From them, I drink the light of the bodies, the fantastic visions from classic scenes, the geometry and theatricality in the positioning of the figures, the apparent disorder of the elements and occasional incoherence, of the oneiric dreamscapes. 

In short, all of this has formed my artistic vision together with my particular symbolic world and the   influence of the number 3 in my work.

 

The core values of my current work are based on the development of the theme Love – Death in a constant attempt to capture the power of feminine beauty. This is coupled with the fervent desaire to represent only the strictly essential without adornment, which moves my spirit.