Lisa Alvarado

Alvarado's practice bridges visual art and sound to create works that explore the possibilities and nuances of abstraction. She began making her free-hanging works in 2010, as portable sets for the band Natural Information Society, an experimental ensemble of traditional and electronic instruments. Her two-sided works float between categories—they are at once paintings, screens and tapestries that create airy partitions, delineating pathways, evoking both theatrical and ceremonial uses. Alvarado's hand-painted compositions consist of sequences that suggest foundational real-world materials: bricks, religious icons, single-celled organisms, the organic systems covering the natural information of life—things of which history and culture are formed. Alvarado's works recall a number of traditions, among them Mexican textiles and European and American Modernist painting, however they build on those sources to become something of their own. Hybridity and in-betweenness are central to Alvarado's practice. Her work calls attention to the idea of mestizaje, which refers to the cultural and ethnic mixing in Mexican history, and is expanded to mean a mixing of ideas and materials as a way to resist or bridge cultural and conceptual divides.

with Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society • Natural Information (Eremite Records MTE-61, 2014) • Represencing (Eremite Records MTE-58, 2012; MTE-62, 2014) • Magnetoception (Eremite Records MTE-63/64, 2015) • Automaginary (Drag City, 2015), Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas • Simultonality (Eremite Records MTE-68, 2017) • Mandatory Reality (Eremite Records MTE-70/71 x2LP, 2019) • descension (Out of Our Constrictions) (Eremite Records MTE-74/75, x2LP, 2021), Natural Information Society with Evan Parker • Since Time Is Gravity (Eremite Records MTE-78/79, x2LP, 2023), Natural Information Society with Ari Brown