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Jhina Alvarado is s a self taught artist and holds a MA in math education from San Francisco State University.
Forgotten Memories is a series of paintings based on old photographs and their potential associations. Alvarado carefully crops each reference photograph, so that one figure emerges as a “viewpoint character” in a consequently unbalanced composition.
Alvarado regards the precise identity of her figures as inconsequential because so many memories are collective, and for this reason she blocks out their eyes. The considerable amounts of negative space serve to create tension.
The finished paintings are coated in encaustic wax for an antiquated, dream-like aesthetic. ‘The wax obscures the images, as if the viewer is trying to recall a past event and cannot remember all of the details,’ she explains.
California-born Alvarado has lived in San Francisco since 1994. Her work has been exhibited across the United States.