Anton Alvarez

Anton Alvarez fashions his creations using systems and tools of his own devising that form an integral part of his oeuvre. He alternates between artist, craftsman and engineer, having designed, amongst other processes, the “Thread Wrapping Machine” which enables the assembly, using glue coated thread, of all kinds of objects, and from them create functional furniture and abstract assemblages. In the same spirit, his ceramic sculptures are the result of an ingenious process: The clay passes through an extruder—a 3-tonne ceramic press he built himself—Anton Alvarez thus combines technological innovation with artisanal know-how, confounding the distinctions between machine production and craftsmanship. While he subjects his materials to mechanical and technical processes, he permits them the freedom to express themselves, where an aleatory element is always allowed to come into play. The shapes and textures he produces seem dictated by nature and develop on their own, like living beings. The inclusion of an element of chance in his process places him in the same tradition as the Surrealists (Max Ernst, André Masson) as well as the Fluxus artists.

Currently based in Stockholm, the Swedish-Chilean artist Anton Alvarez (b. 1980) graduated from the Royal College of Art, London, UK in 2012. He has enjoyed notable solo exhibitions at the Vandalorum Museum in Sweden (2021), the Larsen Warner Gallery in Sweden (2019), the Espace Muraille in Geneva (2018), at the National Centre for Craft and Design in the UK (2016), The Xue Xue Institute in Taipei (2016) and at the Salon 94 in New York (2016). In 2019, Anton Alvarez participated in the 10th Korean Ceramic Biennale. His works feature in numerous prestigious collections including the public collections of the Stockholm Nationalmuseum, the Röhsska Museum in Göteborg and the Denver Art Museum (Colorado, USA).