July 2010

JHINA ALVARADO

Forgotten Memories

Our July show features paintings by San Francisco artist Jhina Alvarado. Working with orphaned snapshots long removed from the contextual meaning of family dynamics, Alvarado paints forgotten individuals amid an ambiguous white space rendered slightly opaque & dream-like by an overlay of encaustic wax. Cropped from the distractions of their original photographic environment, we are

drawn to speculate on the characteristics & memories of the individuals depicted. The sense of unbalance & abstraction created by the white space of her painted environment is heightened by a thick black band that covers each of her figures' eyes. Here is a complex study of forgotten memory & lost identity that calls into question photography's assumed ability to isolate & accurately record meaning. Several times removed from their original identity & made even more anonymous with the loss of their eyes, Alvarado's figures beg to be remembered. As viewers we are given few details; their obscurity is near complete as though we, too, have black bands over our eyes even as we engage in the act seeing.