Los Enamorados

About the Work

From the Artist:

My images evolve from memories. My paintings are heavily encrusted surfaces which rely on the fusions between figure and ground. At times a work might include a narrative which usually discloses itself during the process of painting.

I have no experience with offset lithograph. [At Brandywine Workshop and Archives] I investigated the possibility of creating the illusion of a multi-dimensional surface using this technique.
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}

Los Enamorados (The Lovers), an early figurative work by Candida Alvarez, depicts a small window opening into an interior space where two couples appear to be enjoying an evening party. "Knowing that Los Enamorados was conceived as a small print and where it ended, the artist felt it was an extremely successful project," said founder Allan Edmunds. “The largest prints that some artists have [ever] produced were printed at Brandywine." The viewer enters an interior to see a photograph of two lovers superimposed on an abstract textured background of transparent colors and tropical vegetation, which slices through space emphasizing movement and depth. Alvarez's use of geometric shapes—circle, diamond, triangle, and octagon—along with repetition and patterning result in an energetic color and form arrangement.
_{—Adapted from Tatiana Reinoza, PhD, from All My Ancestors: The Spiritual in Afro-Latinx Art (2022) exhibition catalog and "Fresh, Human and Personal: Signature of Brandywine Workshop," Three Decades of American Printmaking: The Brandywine Workshop Collection (Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 2004)}