The Nightwalk (La Passeggiata), 2024
Through his luminous depictions of queer joy, friendship, and desire, RF. Alvarez dismantles the myths of machismo in the American South and West—illuminating the tenderness hidden beneath the façade of masculinity.
RF. Alvarez is an artist based in Austin, Texas, whose practice reimagines the narratives of the American West through a queer and deeply personal lens. With family roots in both Mexico and Texas, Alvarez explores the tension between Southern machismo and the vulnerability embedded in human connection. His paintings—often depicting friends, lovers, and revelers—offer an Eden-like vision of joy, intimacy, and tenderness, countering a historical narrative of alienation and erasure.
Working primarily in acrylic on raw linen, Alvarez employs a dry-brush technique that allows pigment to soak into the textile, creating soft, luminous surfaces with a preservable, almost archeological quality. His painterly language borrows from Old Master traditions—particularly Caravaggio’s tenebrism—while integrating motifs drawn from Texan lore, vaquero culture, and pre-Columbian artifacts. The result is a cinematic, dreamlike atmosphere where sombreros, longhorn skulls, and cowboy hats coexist with intimate depictions of queer bodies and communities.
Alvarez’s works have been recognized for their filmic quality and evocative light, bridging historical technique with contemporary experience. By staging scenes of queer celebration and quotidian intimacy against the backdrop of Western mythology, Alvarez offers a radical re-reading of heritage, masculinity, and belonging in the twenty-first century.