Juan Manuel Alvarez-ossa

I was born in Colombia and went in the early 70’s to the USA and settled down in Beacon, NY, with my parents and siblings. Very early in life I started to show artistic aptitudes and easiness at drawing and painting, getting first place children’s art contests as of 1967.
My true vocation really showed up when I was in Beacon High School. During those years I majored in Art and modern languages as I was thinking in becoming later a diplomat. In my senior year, I participated in the decoration of the school doing big murals, and participated in as many art activities as I could or there were.
In my third year at Marist College, I went to Paris to study and improve my French within my International Relations major program. Once in Paris, I realized that diplomacy was not what I wanted to do. I dropped those studies, switched majors into Literature and art, and graduated from the American University in Paris. I eventually got other degrees in Linguistics from la Sorbonne, studied Japanese and stayed in Paris, where I lived for thirty-six years becoming an artist before moving to Switzerland. I have been commissioned works by private and public patrons.


Portfolio:

Photography - Fine Art

A selection of my Fine Art photos : still life, minimalism, meditation ...

Still life with flowers under a light. 2020. “Still life with flowers under a light. 2020.”

This photo was taken a few years ago, but was only printed recently. It is the first work of a series about studies on still life and subject treated on a “clair-obscure » technique: light, color, shades and profusion and how the reflection of the subject on a glass adds to the impression of a multitude of flowers bursting into the light. It is also an approach into reality and abstraction. The image can be seen on three of its four sides.
Canson Acid Free Paper 310g/m2.

Figurative Art work

Some of my figurative works.

Of fear, loneliness and desperation. “Of fear, loneliness and desperation.”

This is a work belonging to a series about Covid-19. Its composition captures what this world is going through :
loneliness, separation, fear, isolation. It presents a man lost with the surrealistic truth of the pandemic and questions that arise hence about existence in the new world, brought as a consequence of the pandemic. It points to "the pure, true loneliness and despair”, sadness and disenchantment that surround us despite what mankind has accomplished so far.
The curled up man is tagged on a concrete wall. He seems to be crushed under the weight of the slabs of concrete upon which he has been represented and broken by the panels arrangement that evoke equally the portioning of his reality. He is naked, alluding to his fragility despite all the progress and achievements he has accomplished.
Holding his head in act of protection … is he thinking? Is he regretting? Will there be a change to come?

Abstractions

In this portfolio, one can find some of my abstract creations. My goal is to recreate the abstract reality win which we live.

Unwrapping the holiday season : an abstraction. “Unwrapping the holiday season : an abstraction.”

This work is about happiness, the holidays, the unwrapping of a gift during the holidays.

There are two movements opposing each other. The box -that may also represent "home"- falls or enters the scene from a corner, depending on how it is viewed, and the golden squares -representing the "three wise kings" that come in to counterbalance the motion created by the unwrapping box across from the other side. The opposing moves are highlighted by the growing golden squares that walk calmly into the box and find there, in the mist of the reds, their place. The growing golden squares representing the wise kings seem to march slowly into the stage and come into view each one at a time, with the small one that gives depth to the journey they have accomplished. These two movements are counterbalanced by a third one coming from the painting itself.