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<\/p>\nYou worked a day job for a long time in New York and L.A., but now you\u2019re a full-time painter based in Austin. How did you forge that path?<\/p>\n
My mom grew up in small-town Texas and my dad is a Mexican immigrant. Making a living off of art, for me, was never part of the conversation. It just was not. It didn\u2019t enter the lexicon of my family or even my understanding of how to make a way into the world. I went to college and studied sociology and history, which all play into my work, but I wasn\u2019t one of the studio art kids. After, I was doing graphic design work and started my own agency. Even though it can be creative, it\u2019s client work. I started painting\u2014drawing, really\u2014so I could do something creative that wasn\u2019t beholden to someone else\u2019s opinions.<\/p>\n
It got to a point, though, where I reached a depression. I was so close to being able to have more of an art career, but I wasn\u2019t able to invest enough time into my work. So, I took a leap. My husband was in medical school when I told him, \u201cI\u2019m unhappy and I really want to try this thing,\u201d and he supported my decision. I\u2019m always, still, trying to buy myself more time to paint. I just want to be in the studio, painting. And the only way that I can buy as much time as possible to paint is to sell the work somehow.<\/p>\n
One of my biggest hurdles was overcoming my imposter syndrome, which has never gone away. I have just accepted that it\u2019s going to be there. I actually think that hating your work is an essential part of the artistic process. It\u2019s the only way to get better. Hate the thing you\u2019ve done, find holes in it. That\u2019s how you improve.<\/p>\n
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RF. Alvarez, Boats Against The Current, 2025, 48 x 48 inches.<\/p>\n
You didn\u2019t go to art school. Can you talk about how you learned to paint and how you found your voice as a painter?<\/p>\n
For a while, I thought I wasn\u2019t going to be able to be an artist because I didn\u2019t go to art school. That just simply isn\u2019t the case. It\u2019s always been about working and working and working and working through the bad stuff until I get to something that feels worth pursuing. The work at the beginning of my career was totally different from my work now. It\u2019s fine, I don\u2019t love it. It was simple in so many ways, but that was the work at the beginning. As soon as I got over myself and was able to put work out there, I was able to develop as an artist. But, I\u2019m still working through it.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t start off with the expectation that I needed to have the angle and I didn\u2019t start off with the expectation that I needed to follow all the rules. With anything in life, you don\u2019t have to follow the rules. Having something that you need to get off of your chest or having the hunger to create is enough.<\/p>\n
You began your career as something of an outsider, at least in the art world, which seems fitting in a way. Your paintings are heavily invested in interrogating the idea of being an outsider. Not only in Texas, but also in your family.<\/p>\n
Yeah. I grew up under the shadow of a grandfather who was a cowboy and then all the Mexican machismo on the other side.<\/p>\n
And now, as an artist, you\u2019re trying to make sense of all of that.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right. It\u2019s funny, the act of making art. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s that I have something to say and then I go paint it. Actually, I feel as if I\u2019m a conduit between something deeper in me, some bigger thing, and my own realizations. The pathway of understanding what I\u2019m painting about, or who I am and what I\u2019m trying to work through, comes from the painting to me, not the other way around. I feel like a lot of artists relate to this. It\u2019s like it goes through me and arrives at the painting, then I look at the painting like, oh shit, this is the thing I\u2019m unpacking.<\/p>\n
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RF. Alvarez, A Picture of Us, 2025, 24 x 30 inches.<\/p>\n
It really started when I moved back to Texas. I was gone for ten years and when I came back, Trump had just been elected the first time. I hadn\u2019t unpacked why I\u2019d left in the first place and what I\u2019d left behind. My work has now become the act of unpacking that. It\u2019s been about trying to understand who I am within a bigger context\u2014of family, of the place I\u2019m from, of the country we\u2019re living in. What does it mean to be an American right now? That\u2019s on my mind. I\u2019m trying to understand myself through the act of painting.<\/p>\n
Even though the theme of being an outsider is important to your work, a lot of your paintings depict deep love and tenderness.<\/p>\n
A lot of my work is cinematic in inspiration. I\u2019m interested in how directors or cinematographers frame a scene and what\u2019s outside the frame. For me, a lot of the time, the work is not necessarily about what a viewer is seeing, but about the greater world that exists outside the frame. To create a very quiet, intimate scene in a home, a place that\u2019s a hearth of belonging, between two men, like my husband and I, within a Texas landscape, a place where legislation against sodomy was first enacted, shows what it means to have light in the darkness. I find that a much more interesting, compelling, narrative than if I were to just punch you in the face with it.<\/p>\n
Can you talk more about how the Texas landscape plays into your work?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a harsh landscape. The weather passes through so fast. It\u2019s so capricious. My husband\u2019s a gardener and it\u2019s impossible to keep something alive. You never know what\u2019s going to happen next week. And I find that a very appropriate metaphor for exactly what it means to thrive here under these intense conditions.<\/p>\n
You never know what\u2019s going to happen.<\/p>\n
You never know what\u2019s going to happen. Not to say that we\u2019re an authoritarian state in Texas, but there is this question of, is the bottom going to fall out at any point? Is the storm coming?<\/p>\n
Is it coming?<\/p>\n
I have painted a lot more works about oncoming storms lately.<\/p>\n
Like Turner?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been looking at Turner a lot. I tried to do a Turner-esque nightscape with the storm in front of moonlight, and it just fell apart on me. I want to revisit. Again, this is how the process of painting works a lot of times for me. I didn\u2019t nail the moon with the storm. I want to try it again. Now, I\u2019ll give it another go. In the process, I will probably find that there\u2019s a deeper narrative going on within that composition, but at this point I\u2019m leaving it up to whatever happens.<\/p>\n
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RF. Alvarez, Gimme Shelter, 2025, 60 x 72 inches.<\/p>\n
For a while, you invested heavily in cultivating a following online, which you described as buying time. Can you talk about your relationship to social media? What was it in the beginning? How has it evolved?<\/p>\n
In one word, toxic. It\u2019s this wild beast that I\u2019ve had to do some sort of dance with. Even still, social media has allowed a lot of artists, like myself, to build a following outside of the normal art world gallery system. At the time when I began, social media was a way that I could reach people with my work. Quitting my job to do art full-time coincided with the beginning of pandemic and I realized that everyone was looking for solace and central nervous system calming things, so I thought, \u201cone thing that people could really use right now is a nice, quiet video of someone slowly painting a painting.\u201d For me, painting is a meditative act, so I decided to get over myself and start sharing my work through social media. So, that\u2019s what I did. And it ended up being essential. It helped me be able to move into a studio, work with bigger galleries, and give me the time and space to improve my craft.<\/p>\n
But, it came at a price. I had to get rid of TikTok, because it was nearing an addiction. And I had nearly 80,000 followers and was pulling in all of these potential collectors, so it felt exciting and delicious. Then I was spending six hours a day on it. I wasn\u2019t painting. I had to get rid of it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d love to get off social media altogether. I envy artists who are able to not be on it. But, I recognize that it was essential at the beginning of my career. But, it has changed. Instagram is now basically just an e-commerce platform or trauma porn.<\/p>\n
Then we inject AI into the mix.<\/p>\n
And now AI. Like fuck me, get me out of here.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s it like to ascend in the art world? You started as an outsider, and maybe you still feel that way, but you\u2019re doing shows and getting high-profile coverage.<\/p>\n
I feel a little bit like the dog that caught the car. I didn\u2019t think it would all happen so fast. How do I talk about this without sounding trite? I started my full-time painting practice, because I was just craving more time to paint. I wanted to be working at bettering my ability to communicate using this medium. And I have arrived at a place where I\u2019m now working with galleries that I very much respect and am excited to be working with, who are doing incredible work for me. I\u2019m even taking interviews with galleries who are pitching themselves to me. That\u2019s a fucking insane thing.<\/p>\n
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RF. Alvarez, The Secret Language, 2025, 36 x 48 inches.<\/p>\n
In all honesty, I have no idea what to do with myself. I\u2019m taking it day by day. It\u2019s a funny thing, how life works. You have this dream of where you want to end up and one day you wake up there. I think it can be really easy, or maybe it\u2019s just human nature, to take what you have for granted. It\u2019s easy to lose track of that. That I\u2019m currently living the dream that I once had for myself.<\/p>\n
When you decided to quit your job and do art full-time, did you have a plan?<\/p>\n
I had enough savings for two months. I\u2019m lucky that I have parents that would\u2019ve supported me if I really needed it, too. That\u2019s important to acknowledge and be aware of. I have a family infrastructure of people who love me and would help me get back on my feet. But, I did it on my own and I\u2019m really proud that I did it on my own. Since I only had two months, I really had to start selling shit right away. I kept my overhead really low in the beginning. I was working out of my house and mostly doing sales through social media. I took a lot of commissions. Interior designers were an important first step for me. So, I pitched myself to them and that was a good early step in making money with my work.<\/p>\n
One thing that strikes me is that you have this resistance to being one thing. You are a painter, first, but you also do collaborations in other worlds, like wine, fragrance, and food.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fun to do something different. I think I went into this not wanting to be defined by other people\u2019s expectations of me. I\u2019m just trying to just have fun with it. I don\u2019t know that an artist has to be one thing, and I like the idea of the modern artist doing other stuff. In the fall, I\u2019m doing a three month residency in London and I pitched that I wanted to write a play. At some point, I want to make a film. I want to open a restaurant. I want to write a novel. Who knows? I don\u2019t think we should be confined to one thing. When I was younger, I had all this long list of things I wanted to do, and I remember sitting around with a friend, having a drink, and I was like, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know if I should do this or this or this.\u201d My friend was like, \u201cRobert, shut up and pick one.\u201d<\/p>\n
What do you do when you\u2019re not painting?<\/p>\n
Cook and drink.<\/p>\n
What else is there?<\/p>\n
Exactly. It\u2019s funny, when I was doing graphic design, painting was the thing that I did for myself to be creative and explore. There wasn\u2019t any external pressure on it. Now that painting is the thing that I do for a career, it now has to tango with that external pressure. So, cooking has become the thing. I love to throw a good dinner party.<\/p>\n
And you paint them.<\/p>\n
I threw one last weekend and the weekend before that. It\u2019s a lot of dinners.<\/p>\n
Home and space are important to you.<\/p>\n
Essential. Even more than trying to unpack queerness or trying to unpack Texas heritage, my work is about home finding. It is about finding and understanding the concept of home. The home that I have, that I share with my partner, is the most sacred of spaces to me. I was a child of divorce. My parents split when I was 11 and I was passed back and forth between these two households. I was living out of a suitcase for so much of my life. Now that I have it, I feel so lucky and I cherish it. It\u2019s important to me.<\/p>\n
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RF. Alvarez, Two Step In The Kitchen, 2025, 48 x 60 inches.<\/p>\n
If someone said to you, \u201cI want my life to be like yours. I want to be an artist. I want to quit my job.\u201d What would you say?<\/p>\n
Get out of your own way and get to work. For me, the thing that was the hardest hurdle to overcome was getting over the fact that I wasn\u2019t producing the work I wanted in the beginning. Just like that Ira Glass quote about having taste. I had these expectations I wasn\u2019t going to meet. I didn\u2019t think my work was good or worth it. I wish I had realized earlier that it\u2019s not something I can overcome before doing it. Style naturally comes out of the work itself.<\/p>\n
So, I would say work and work and work and work and work. Enjoy the act of working and then figure the rest out after. I think the mistake that artists make is that they make one artwork and think that one piece of art is enough to propel them to fame. But it\u2019s going to be hundreds of pieces down the road. You have to really love what you\u2019re doing. Just work and work and work and enjoy the work.<\/p>\n
RF. recommends 5 things his kitchen pantry cannot exist without:<\/p>\n
I recently took a trip to Athens and was blown away by KYKNOS tomato paste<\/a>. It\u2019s perfect for building a soup or sauce (You can just add it to a pan of sweated shallots, splash of white wine, and you have a beautiful sauce) or even spooning into pita.<\/p>\n I make artworks for the restaurant King in NYC a lot, and they turned me onto this fabulous olive oil from Tenuta di Capezzana<\/a>. It\u2019s extremely well-balanced, aromatic, fresh. I drizzle it over everything from lettuces to ice cream, swipe it with garlic toast and eggs in the morning. I consume a lot of this stuff.<\/p>\n My favorite red wine vinegar is from Portugal\u2013vinagre tinto\u2013and I use this one in salads and to marinate tomatoes and for anything else that needs a dry tangy punch of flavor. Herdade do Espor\u00e3o is my go-to.<\/a><\/p>\n The best dijon for your money, in my opinion, is the Edmond Fallot Dijon. But I\u2019ve been really into its cousin, the Moutarde de Bourgogne<\/a>, which is a bit softer with Burgundy mustard seed and the addition of white wine. It\u2019s great to build a simple dressing when combined with minced garlic, pepper, salt,, the aforementioned red wine vinegar, and slowly stirring in the aforementioned olive oil). Make it, lick it up. Thank me later.<\/p>\n