This September and through the beginning of the new year, the Living Room Gallery in the Tualatin Public Library will bring you the paintings of Alvaro Tarrago, a self-taught social expressionist artist whose inspirations come from his international living experiences in various countries around the world.
Alvaro was born in Mexico City, Mexico, and came to the United States to attend high school. He will tell you that he always wanted to travel from when he was very little because he always thought the world was too big to live only in one place. His education and work life helped him to accomplish his goal of seeing the world and checking off places on a list he made long ago. A career in international business with large corporations meant his life would be lived in many places, including Europe and South America. Working with Lufthansa brought him to Portland, where he has been for seven years.
Alvaro started to paint seriously more recently, and when you look at his art, you will see that he looks at society from a critical perspective and with an appreciation for the beauty in universal themes, as in his Tualatin exhibition, where the theme is the economic lives of women. Paintings of women buying and selling in the marketplace have a timeless quality. His subjects could be found in almost any country and speak to the common thread we experience as humans no matter where we call home, or if we are living today or a hundred years ago.
What inspires you to paint, Alvaro?
“Life!” he says with buoyancy and a smile in his voice. “People are very, very interesting beings. There is so much diversity and difference among people, yet they are the same across cultures and time. It is exciting to see–and people are not all good and not all bad. I accept humans as they are and that everyone has their own way of looking at the world. I also find nature very inspiring.”
How would you describe the way you paint or how you work as an artist?
“The reality is it just comes out, and I just let it flow out. I may do a sketch, and then I jump into the painting. There is not a lot of planning. I let my inspiration flow into the canvas or onto the paper, which is very much how the Expressionists did it. Also, I like to experiment.”
What influences have shaped your work?
“When I lived in Europe, I was surrounded by art everywhere. Everywhere you look is art. German Expressionist artists seem to speak the same language I do visually, with a force of subject and color. There is a directness that appeals to me. While I like Realism, I don’t wish to paint that way as it seems rather academic. I want to take the viewer beyond the painting.”
What is the idea behind the collection of paintings on display at the Tualatin Library?
“The series of paintings in the Living Room Gallery are inspired by the markets of Latin America. In these paintings, you will notice I reflect on the spirit of other countries where I have traveled and lived and seen these women doing an economic activity—selling fruits and vegetables, for example—and I present them in an amalgam of styles and techniques. The series feels very authentic because, if you go to Guatemala or Indonesia or even markets in some places in Europe and Asia, this is what you will see. Through history, so not just place, but time, this is what you see–a reflection of real life, real women working through real activities of their existence.”
What do you like to do when you are not painting?
“I love to read and to travel. I love cities. I try to go to New York City at least once a year because I love the energy of the place. It is very stimulating!”
Alvaro has exhibited extensively, and some of his shows include group and solo shows at the Portland 5 Centers for the Arts (Portland), Maude Kerns Arts Center (Eugene), Oregon Society of Artists (Portland), Angst Gallery (Vancouver), the Broadway Commerce Center (Eugene), East Creative Collection (Portland), Centro de Arte Faro Cabo Mayor (Santander, Spain), Galeria CM (Guadalajara, Mexico), Castillo Faro (Castro Urdiales, Spain), Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.), and Maria Curie University (Lublin, Poland). His art is part of private collections in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Germany, Spain, and France.
Alvaro is a member of IdealPDX, former member of the Board of Directors of the Oregon Society of Artists and the Asian Art Council of the Portland Art Museum.
Come to the Tualatin Library to make cultural connections and/or jog memories of places you lived or visited. This program is sponsored in part by the Tualatin Arts Advisory Committee. If you would like to learn more about this program, contact Angela Wrahtz at angela.wrahtz@comcast.net. If you are interested in acquiring any of the paintings in the show, please contact the artist directly at tarrago.artist@gmail.com.
