Career
Alvarez"s painting Las Cuatas Diego has been featured in books and exhibitions around the world. Alvarez has also illustrated the bilingual children"s book Antonio"s Card authored by Rigoberto González. Her work is collected by the Mexican Fine s Museum, the Seattle Museum and by the Kaiser Foundation.
Alvarez was born in San Diego, California to a Cuban father and a Mexican mother.
Alvarez is a self-taught artist. Alvarez started studying at San Diego State University, however, she did not complete her education because she felt that it wasn"t necessary.
She had been told by faculty that because she was a Mexican-American woman, her work would never be considered "fine art" Alvarez began to help her family financially at the age of twenty-three, after leaving college. In 1975 Alvarez moved to Washington state where she has created the majority of her artwork.
From 1978 to 1981, she attended Eastern Washington University.
She currently resides and works in Seattle, Washington. Alvarez uses personal imagery in her art in order to critique issues that are politically and culturally important to her. Alvarez attempts to redefine the cultural values assigned to women and the concept of family using her art
Her duality as a woman and Chicana define he art as she states, "how we fit into the universe, telling jokes, music, laying tile, whatever it was that evolved that whole ability to think of our humanity." In 1991, Alvarez gifted a color print of her painting "Las Cuatas Diego" to The Mexican Museum"s permanent collection located in San Francisco.
