Francisco Alvarado and Robert Soffian
From Robert and Francisco:
Our Residency is intended to be a time for graceful conversation and exploration. Our goals include: exploring new materials and modeling and learning techniques to motivate change in our practices. We hope a deep dive into our discrete and disparate strategies will describe a circle of thought community.
An important aspect of this residency will be to invite the involvement of viewers into the experience using the same tools we used to create art Symbols, stamps, iPad etc etc.
The process will culminate with an installation which reflects our process and alters place where it exists – Meaning exists in Meeting.
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Francisco Alvarado
Pakoart.com
My work reflects life experiences through various colorful abstractions.
My inspiration comes from nature and my travels.
Using bold colors and patterns I am constantly exploring new creations currently on display.
I utilize both technology and hands on manipulation of acrylic paint, mixed media and digital imaging to create my work.
My series, Without Brushes, consists of drawings made on an iPad and later finished with a photo editing tool. These artistic explorations took me in a new direction of combining my paintings into a series of Digital Art.
I am a member of the Los Angeles Art Association/ Gallery 825 and the Silver Lake Art Community (SLAC). In 2017 “After Nice” (France) received an award and was purchased into the permanent collection of the W. Keith and Janet Kellogg University Art Gallery- INK AND CLAY43. In 2012 Received an award at the INK AND CLAY 38.
I am also an active member of the FAUX SHO’, a bimonthly group show that focuses on different art movement/genre, where every show is interpreted by a diverse group of artists, each negotiating the fine balance of replication and free interpretation of a masterpiece.
Robert Soffian
http://robertsoffian.com/
I am painter who utilizes neo-archaic images and forms. I communicate narratives by way of a private vocabulary comprised of ideograms, vibrant scenic metaphors, glyphs, and disguised figures in motion. I manipulate these forms by altering and juxtaposing handmade stamps like in a puzzle. These etching- like vehicles can be used in a multitude of variations. They morph and age through a process of combination and re-shaping. By revisiting non-rational ancient sources, I see my work as a mythology. I craft my paintings as psychic landscapes. My practice has been influenced by a long career as a theatre director and lighting designer (40 years). The elements of play are strong influences as are improvisation and chance. I am interested in telling lyrical stories symbolically. Seeing the picture frame as a place to enact stories of characters in action energizes me. In my younger years I studied classical archeology and that has influenced my approach to my practice. I have a deep interest in paleontology as well. There is also an element of repetition and the industrial in my process of stamp making. I find this freeing. I often work in series painting in oil, ink, gouache and dye. However, I am always experimenting with materials and surfaces and techniques …papers of all kinds, wood, canvas, aluminum. Recently I have been doing many types of frottage(rubbings) and adding collage of photos and other materials. My palette tends to be wildly colorful. I find I am attracted to the lyrical essence of things. In a sense my entire practice is a negotiation between the formal qualities of paint and the conceptual. There is always an idea there, a first principle… This guiding impulse finds its best expression through being open to the qualities of the new materials I discover. So in this process the old becomes new again.
