CRITIC’S CHOICE

AND so with an end, possibly, in sight to all this – with a following wind, fingers crossed and the help, possibly, of a month of Sundays – just a few more months of galleries mounting their exhibitions in the nebulous ether.

We are used to it now, if not accustomed, but the curious fact remains that many of these “online” exhibitions are still installed in the real-life galleries, despite our lack of presence, the works hung with as much care as if we were all trooping by and appreciating them in person.

So it is with the Modern Institute’s current exhibition, the first UK showing of Chicago-based artist and musician Lisa Alvarado. Born in 1982 in Texas, Alvarado studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and plays harmonium in the musical ensemble Natural Information Society.

Her bright conceptual works are rooted in ideas of “inbetween-ness”, whether it is a construction of the spiritual and the physical or injury and healing, and often staged between music and art.

The works themselves are visually bold, their aesthetic and rhythms influenced by the textile traditions of the Mexican American tradition where Alvarado grew up in Texas, her thought-provoking work informed in part by her own Xicana identity.

Inherent, too, is an exploration of the forced movements of peoples of Mexican origin endured by her predecessors, and of course ongoing today, not least during the previous American presidential administration. Works include Scab Diagram, pictured above, a meeting of sound, painting and sand, looking at the idea of regeneration.