RF. Alvarez

Megan Mulrooney is pleased to present I Remember Everything, an exhibition of new paintings by RF. Alvarez, and the artist’s first solo show in Los Angeles.

RF. Alvarez’s richly cinematic paintings weave together scenes of domestic interiors, back porches at night, and quiet tableaus of lovers in conversation. Queer men appear in a dimly lit kitchen in Boats against the Current, under porch lights in Summer Evening, and around a table in The Secret Language. Each moment Alvarez captures feels distinct, a snapshot of a life we have intimate access to but ultimately cannot fully inhabit.

Throughout the exhibition, Alvarez places an emphasis on tactility and texture. A man striking a match in the dark, another leaning in a doorway; the taut, an embrace that folds two bodies into one compacted frame. These fragments of everyday life are heightened by his mastery of light: amber windows cutting through the blue of night, candle glow gathering around wine glasses, shadows pressed into the folds of denim. There is an immediacy to many of these scenes that invites the viewer not into an abstract idea of place, but into a lived-in world. In Gimme Shelter, on the other hand, Alvarez compresses time and removes setting, creating instead a stacked time lapse of a figure dancing in jeans and a white T-shirt with complete abandon, With his movements and gestures carrying a palpable charge, the work nods to Felix Gonzelez-Torres’ Untitled (Go-Go Dancing Platform) (1991).

In a moment when sexuality and national identity are increasingly politicized and scrutinized, Alvarez’s work asks what it means to belong - to oneself, to another person, to a community. The works in I Remember Everything capture connection not as a fixed state but as something continually negotiated, charged with both tenderness and strength.

RF. Alvarez (b. 1988; lives and works in Austin, TX) has had solo exhibitions at Martha’s, Austin; Taymour Grahne Projects, London; Alanna Miller, New York; and Preacher Gallery, Austin. Group exhibitions include Almine Rech, Paris; the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm; and Ruiz-Healy Gallery, San Antonio.