Exhibit “El Paisaje y Yo” by Sergio Alvarado

“Ever since I was born, I have had a recurrent conversation with my good friend, the surrounding landscape.  I feel happy to be part of it and have the opportunity to portray and convey it, so my landscape is full of color.

When I walk through the landscape and see the volcanoes and the mountains that surround me, I think that the landscape has been here before I was born, so “It is a good reason to paint it”.  I remember the questions I had as a child:  for example: where is the wind coming from and where is it going? Where are the clouds born? Why are the trees green? Why is the color of the flowers so beautiful, etc. This is the way I speak to the landscape that shelters us in its arms and provides us with food, drink, heat and cold day after day, always giving us hope. This is why I consider myself a landscape artist; I was born in the countryside!

This to me is a way of awakening and taking note of all that exists around me; along with learning how to weave our traditional clothing, which reflects the beautiful colors of the same landscape.

My work is a fusion of our landscape, the intense colors of the Guatemalan textiles, my imagination and, my experiences. It is like a time capsule that contains a lot of happiness and hope. In my painting, I capture the external reality and in the colors, my internal reality and their own gestures.

Although I live in the landscape, I forget that I’m part of it.

In this special exhibit, I feature several facets of my work: The Landscapes of the Western Highlands of Guatemala”, as well as pastures, houses, trees, and the wildflowers, which are born exclusively to beautify the countryside. There are scenes of the “Lakes of Atitlán” in which I portray a part of everyday life in that area and also works that convey my spiritual need for evolving into more “abstract” work, which has been inspired by the pasture and flowers of the field.  Their essence is my own, it becomes a prayer to the countryside, and at that moment, I become one with the landscape.

This is a prayer that will continue as long as I am alive; the days are beautiful, even if they are grey.

“My spirit is restless, and I paint what I am”. Sergio Alvarado, February 2019

Visit the artist´s page in our gallery