Pedro Diego Alvarado-Rivera: Recent Paintings

Ruiz-Healy Art is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Pedro Diego Alvarado-Rivera, his first in the United States. “Since it's a show for the United States, I wanted to repeat themes that were of interest to me,” Alvarado says.

Most of the works in the show are still-lifes of fruit — chirimoyas, mandarins, limes, star fruit, cactus pears — nestled in crinkled tissue paper the way they are displayed in Mexican markets, piled high in a basket (“Jitomates en canasta”), or painted against a dramatic black background (“Sandia”). “I think it's a very good way to meditate about form, shape,” Alvarado says of still-lifes. “It's a pretext to work with color, light, form. They could be abstract paintings.”

In other works, he explores the Mexican landscape, including rural vistas in paintings that shows the stark Mexican light, and others, where tentacle-like arms of magueys reach toward a cloudy sky. Because of the subject matter, these works, more than any others in the exhibit, call to mind the work of some of the giants of Mexican art, including, of course, his grandfather Diego Rivera.

“I made a series of still lifes — pumpkins with corn,” he says. “I was fascinated by it. And I thought, ‘Well, I'll keep on doing still lifes until I do something else.' But the thing is I've been doing it for 20 years.” He laughs. “It's an unending project.”

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