Meet Angel Alvarado

Today we’d like to introduce you to Angel Alvarado.

Angel, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started out at Los Angeles City College just trying to figure myself out and looking for what options to take. I had been interested in art in high school and dabbled in during my junior and senior years. It wasn’t until I joined my school’s art gallery that my focus refined itself towards art and from then on, I kept going.

I worked my way through community college and went to UCLA where I really started to focus on my work. I was fascinated by the work of Catherine Opie and Lari Pittman and I was fortunate enough to study under them. As a brown boy from the edge of Koreatown, I never felt like I had anything worthwhile to say. My knowledge grew and I felt more confidant in being bolder in myself and in my queerness. In trying to investigate myself and how I felt as a fat brown body that comes from an immigrant family, it became more of an imperative to stand proud in what I am and allow myself to express myself in all forms.

Photography, video, and installation became my medium of choice, but I was also aware that if needed, my work could exist outside those mediums to fully flesh itself out.

I graduated in the winter of 2015 and I wore many hats, working freelance jobs in various places, as a gallery attendant at MOCA, and as a personal assistant. I learned so much from all of these jobs and grew from it and allowed my visual vocabulary to expand. Trying to bring myself back from debt became a huge priority and it took a few years for me to realize this and take my own work seriously. I had my first solo show at Human Resources in 2019 and I’m steadily working on myself and my own work and ready to push myself forward as an artist.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
To be frank, it’s a difficult road trying to cut your teeth as a creative person in Los Angeles, especially when it comes to finances. All of my work has been self-funded, so I work to make work. I worked freelance for a long time and taxes will come back to bite you in the ass, and it’s all things that no one tells you about beforehand. Much of my solo show was self-funded by myself and my curator, Javier Arellano Vences, and with the immense support of Human Resources. The biggest advice I have with this is know that you will go through your own challenges throughout, but at a certain point you have to think about what’s most important to you. I recently read a profile of the artist Gabriela Ruiz and she made a comment about using money she got from a car accident for her artwork and as intense as that statement was, I really identified with that sentiment: If your work is a priority, you’ll find a way to fund it.

One last note – if you’re trying to buy work from a struggling artist, or are trying to hire someone to make work for you, pay them their worth and don’t complain about it.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
Like I said above, my work tends to be mostly photography, video, and installation work. My primary concern looks to question notions of gender, sexuality, and agency through bodies that are perceived as marginalized. Within the cis gay male community, there is a homogenization of voices that center white, active-bodied men as the pinnacle of desirability, My recent work has been trying to question and dismantle this stereotypical point of view and to empower others to explore and find their own voice within my work.

I’m currently working on my next show entitled “I took a trip into the garden and I came out dripping with need,” opening on March 20th at Arrullar (instagram @arrullar), an apartment pop-up gallery in Koreatown. In tandem to this, I’m working on a couple of projects: a video piece and a potential performance for the LA Queer Biennial, which is happening later in the summer. Much of my process is research-oriented, so I’m spending a lot of my time on my computer and with a highlighter in hand. If you’d like to keep up with with any of my projects and announcements, my instagram is the best place for that.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Both of my parents worked full time in order to provide for me and my siblings, It might not be the most exciting but one of my favorite memories is remembering trips to Hansen Dam in Sun Valley. My family would pack food in a cooler and we would make the trek from East Hollywood over to the aquatic center and spend the day at the pool. It would be a family affair, with my parents, my nieces and nephews, and just all of us having fun, splashing around in the chlorinated water in the middle of summer. That feeling of being surrounded by the coolness of the water and the joy it brought is something I think about to this day.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sixovertwo.com
• Email: sixovertwo@gmail.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/angel_____alvarado

Image Credit:
Personal photo – Image by Jordan Angulo; A presentation of flowers – angel alvarado (2018); A touch of the neck – angel alvarado (2018); backdrop (a portrait of alyss) – angel alvarado (2018); piernas (#5) – angel alvarado (2018/2020); self portrait with still life (the sweeter the taste, the harder the bite) – Angel Alvarado; (2019); still life (the one thing you need in this life is a bit of tenderness; let it drip all over you) – angel alvarado (2019); still life with flowers (i took a trip onto the garden and I came out dripping with need) – angel alvarado (2019); Untitled (study on Jack Pierson, “as if he belonged. No one”, 1991) – angel alvarado (2020)

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