Artist Statement

I work in a variety of mediums, ranging from digital art to more traditional processes like painting and different forms of printmaking. I take lots of inspiration from many different aspects of my life, albeit friends I have made at different points in my life, many of my lived experiences and especially so the cartoons and comics I would watch or read as a kid. These inspirations come through in my art in a variety of different ways, for example my love of cartoons shows in the general style of my art, with bold outlines, simplistic cartoony designs, and more flat color based rendering. My lived experiences come through in the narrative design that I try to use my art to tell. I like to cover my negative and positive experiences in bright fluorescent colors and glitter as a way to make them more digestible and as a form of escapism.

Artist bio

Belle Alvarez is a 2d artist, working with both digital illustration and physical mediums such as painting, charcoal drawing, and printmaking. She is currently attending San Jose State University working on obtaining her BFA with a focus on Pictorial Arts. She takes inspiration from the media she engages with and has engaged with in the past. She first started making art as a way to engage with media she enjoyed on a deeper level in the form of fanart and now has begun to make art unique to herself inspired by the same media. She started off making drawings with paper and graphite, but upon starting to attend SJSU she fell in love with printmaking as a process, trying to learn as many different processes as she could and how to improve her skills with it. She has joined the printmaking guild at SJSU and with the club has showcased her art in two galleries and has helped with the process of setting each gallery up. She uses art as a way to convey her experiences in a playful manner.