Claudia Alvarez

"I'm influenced by the characteristics of children. Their actions pose questions simply yet poignantly about complex issues in the world today. A child's viewpoint is innocent of cultural conventions. Their eyes and comments reveal to us just how corrupt social mechanisms are."

Claudia Alvarez (Mexican-American, b. 1969) is best known for her ceramic sculptures and paintings of children. She focuses much of her work on themes addressing fear, hate, vulnerability, compassion, and tolerance. She uses images of children as reflection of human conduct, ethics, belief system, culture, race, tradition, assimilation, and displacement.

Alvarez was born in Monterrey, Mexico. She immigrated with her family in 1972 at the age of three to the United States. She spent most of her childhood in Lodi and Sacramento, California. She now lives and works in New York City and Omaha, Nebraska. She attended the University of California, Davis (BFA 1999) and California College of Arts, San Francisco (MFA 2003). Her work has been exhibited in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Mexico.

Recent solo exhibitions include Girls with Guns, Scott White Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California, Falling, Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, Nebraska, Silencio de Agua, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Yucatan, Merida, Mexico, American Heroes, Blue Leaf Gallery, Dublin, Ireland, Cosas de un Niño, El Museo Latino, Omaha, Nebraska, History of Immigration, Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, Nebraska.

Her work has appeared in New American Paintings, The Irish Times, Art Pulse, NY Arts Magazine, Review Magazine, Ceramics Monthly and Confrontational Ceramics. Collections include National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Yucatan, Merida, Mexico, Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, Nebraska, El Museo Latino, Omaha, Nebraska, and Whitespace: The Mordes Collection West Palm Beach, Florida.

Claudia Alvarez





















Born: 1969, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Lives and works in New York City

Education
2003     California College of Arts, Oakland/San Francisco, California MFA
1999     University of California Davis, Davis, California BA