Cándida Alvarez, “Air Paintings” series, 2017–19

Narrator: These “Air Paintings” by Candida Alvarez had their beginnings in another project—a public painting she made to hang beneath the Wacker Bridge in Chicago. She painted this work on a kind of mesh typically used for outdoor banners. After that project was completed, the proofs she’d created when first experimenting with the material were still in her studio.

Candida Alvarez: Anyway, my father dies. There's a hurricane in Puerto Rico. My mother is there with my sister. And so there's a lot of tension and a lot of unknowing. And so I had these proofs lying around in the studio never thinking I would ever use them, but hold onto them as documentation of a bigger piece. And I just started painting on them. And what I loved about them was that they were this material that was so flexible and still so plastic. They were like the paint that I use, acrylic for the most part. But they were lightweight, so that I could put them on the wall and I could put them on the floor.

And so I wasn't aiming for anything, but to just have this experience. And I didn't know what the outcome was going to be. 

Narrator: Alvarez brought this exploratory, experimental thinking to the titles of the works as well. One of them is called Lomas.

Candida Alvarez: Lomas means mountain or translates into the Spanish word for mountain. I didn't name these for a long time afterwards, but it kind of reminded me of the landscape in Puerto Rico. This idea of the mountain. And I love the idea of a mountain. Or it also looks like a breast. It also looks like a Cemi, which is this very special carving, like stone carvings from the Taino Indians from the island, who were the early inhabitants of Puerto Rico, the island. Boriquén, as they called them.