KATRIN ALVAREZ

The Power Of Thought

By Viviana Puello

“The ability to make thoughts and feelings visible is of the utmost importance in my life. But, over the last few years in particular, I’ve found I can no longer do this with the tools I have, as the news from all over the world crashes into my mind, battling for my attention with all its apparent significance. I am left helpless by this shrill pandemonium, full of disrespect and aggression, and by the unconstrained exploitation of nature. I’m still searching for my responsibility as an artist. It can’t be enough to live in an aesthetic ivory tower. I’m far too quiet with my canvass and my paints”.

Katrin Alvarez

Award-winning master artist Katrin Alvarez is known for her compelling, dreamlike, surreal paintings that represent the complexity of human situations. Alvarez focuses on the human figure while introducing multiple references such as objects, animals, etc. to enrich the composition conceptually as well as visually.

Katrin Alvarez started as a journalist, going in-depth into the writing profession, but along the way she taught herself the art of painting, influenced and inspired by Michelangelo and Brueghel.

Hidden inside each of Katrin Alvarez' paintings is a mood that is impossible to miss, the artist takes her audience on a visual journey as witnesses of people in different stances and circumstances along with elements that make an impact, slowly managing to blend in and propose some radical aesthetic and conceptual ideas.

Alvarez's works are the perfect combination of expressionism and surrealism. Her paintings are troubling and provoking yet soothing, intimate and sensitive yet bizarre, upsetting yet blissful. The compelling and transcendent imagery in her art has a form of teaching, evoking an array of emotions in the viewer. Her masterful use of color and light and skilled knowledge of the human figure allows for perfectly balanced compositions that expand the perceptions of her audience, creating room for each viewer to form different selfinterpretations of the art.

Showcasing masterful drawing skills, Katrin Alvarez depicts all of the figures and other objects or elements on her canvas with exact precision, something that shows her work is the product of dedicated research. Alvarez uses the gaze in her subjects’ eyes as the focal point of her pieces carrying a full palette of fascination, the result, paintings that are thought-provoking, making use diverse media to have a multidimensional approach.

Katrin Alvarez offers both personal and universal messages, as she aims to raise awareness and establish a fruitful discussion with her public considering a vast number of topics that need more consideration. Thus it is very natural that she structures her artistic expression in a way that invites active participation from the audience for the interpretation of her works.

Alvarez is an internationally renowned artist whose works have been exhibited all over the world. She has received many awards for her paintings since 1968, including The First Group show in Cologne in 1968, Art Basel in Switzerland in 1978, and Agora Gallery in New York in 2004, among others. In 2007, her piece Exorcism won the Allan Edwards AwardPainting On the Edge. In 2009, she received the Vivid Arts Network Award at the Museum Castello Estense and a Leonardo Award for Applied Arts in which she was given the first prize in 2013. In 1972, she received an award for her first solo show in Cologne, and in 2012 she came out with yet another celebration in Vienna.

Katrin Alvarez' diverse and vibrant work is what has promoted her as an artist who has established her presence in the global art scene as a distinguished contribution to her creativity.

“Ibelieve that artists have an important role to play in changing the patriarchal world we live in. It is becoming increasingly clear that the present patriarchal military, social, political, religious, and economic institutions we live under are no longer workable or sustainable. This is especially true for women who have lived under a patriarchal system created and governed by men for the last 5000 years. In addition, this period also marks the beginning of another important event—the dawn of written language and recorded history in 3100 BC. The confluence of these two events has affected human history to the present time.

As a male pro-feminist artist, I believe we are living at a significant turning point in human history. A monumental change is happening regarding the status of women in Western and other societies worldwide. After millenniums of nearly universal patriarchal subjugation, many women now have the chance to visualize themselves in totally new ways and reclaim their inherent birthright. The artist can play an important role in furthering this historical transformation. This is because the artist has the unique ability to create a visual image that can inspire viewers to reinvent themselves.

To achieve such a balance, my art tries to restore that part of the pre-historic Mother Goddess culture that honored women for their sacred, life-giving, life-affirming powers: Powers associated with the moon and wild animals; qualities associated with art and aesthetics, dance and music, singing, chanting and ecstatic states of being.

As an artist, I wish to create a visual experience that lays the groundwork for a change in attitude—a change that will allow women to feel confident that they have the ability, strength, and resources to take control of their life. Ultimately, this can help us all become more whole and more human".

“Art has been in my life since an early age. Drawing was my best subject in elementary school. At eleven years old, I painted my first oil work. My mother was an artist and became my master teacher and inspiration. She painted porcelain and oil on board. My father, a carpenter, sawn masonite building boards for the paintings and made her frames. Her inspiration where her natural surroundings. Art mentors became family, including the artist Knut Gruva, his friend Sven X-e Erixon, and the leading Professor Bror Hjort.

My talent often flared out in wild fantasies about sometimes challenging and other times possible projects. Among other things, I was commissioned to paint various posters for the association IOGT. One of these was displayed on all the city's displays and lamp posts.

I got my first commission from a school magazine. There were several covers, illustrations, and a series of drawings with my figure, 'Nino,' in several magazine issues. As a teenager, I got to become a student at an advertising and decoration studio. Gradually, I was appointed to be a professional decorator. Then I had the fortune to be employed in the decoration studio in a large department store. The company was known for its decorative art. The studio won many national and international competitions, and I became recognized as one of Sweden's young successful decorators.

I was accepted as a student at Professor Bro Hjort's sculpture school in Uppsala, where I learned different artistic techniques and practiced model painting with the master Bror Hjort himself. I took courses in art, illustration, and typography, which opened new doors to commercial workplaces, including Sweden's largest gramophone company, RCA-Telefunken, and the worldwide graphic industry Esselte/Wezäta AB. Occasionally I worked in Gotenburg as a project manager and organizer in the entertainment industry in collaboration with the Danish ICO. During my spare time, weekends and holidays, I train myself in artistic practice, mostly with drawing, oil painting , and sculptures.

In 1995 I moved to Uppsala with my own advertising agency Mediaform AB and built my own family house outside Uppsala.

Since 1993 I have worked as a full-time artist in my firm Eldbaage. In 1995 I moved to the beautiful little town Sigtuna, a historic place with ruins from the Viking Age, located between Stockholm and Uppsala, 10 km near Arlanda Airport in Sweden.

Over the years, my paintings have been signed differently because I changed my artist's name. Therefore, you can find signatures such as L.Wahlberg, Larz, LRZ, Larz Eldbåge, and international Eldbaage."

“Iam an American abstract artist now living and working in Jönköping, Sweden. My paintings are widely collected and can be found in private and corporate collections and exhibited in respected galleries internationally.

My paintings are inspired by nature, particularly by the magnificent Swedish forests surrounding me.

My recent works simultaneously integrate a voice of today's struggles and exaltations of life. They are not political or intended to make a statement; instead, they are an extension of my experiences, emotions, and