What recent surveys did to illuminate the contributions of Agnes Pelton and Henrietta Shore this one does for Alvarez. While the influence of the locally prevalent California Impressionist style is visible in her work, the dreamy quality of Symbolist influence is crucial. The late Jim Bolin was a consummate artist for over fifty years, influenced by the conceptual and intellectual developments of the early New York avant garde and the automatic writing of Mark Tobey. He isolated the process of mark making, contemplating the mark itself in preference to its role in making an image. Delicate, meditative markings coexist with bravura Abstract Expressionist gesture.
Compositions are unfragmented, formal and cohesive.
Step back, and some of the work becomes atmospheric cloud formations, through each stroke, on closer examination, is separate and distinct. In some image a grid interrupts the intricate dots and dashes to shthmically come to life like notes on sheet music transformed into sounds. Large, expansive paintings of the 1980's investigated geometric form. Dark lines hold crusty paint, forming edges of squares or rectangles. It is nothing new, but it is always fascinating, when artists transform a gallery into an art studio and create a personal display that is constantly in flux.