Corpus Christi artist Franceska Alvarado's self-portraits are both intimate and surreal to the point of dissociation.
They're rife with symbolic imagery, yet they pull from an anecdotal space that examines her emotional experiences as a young woman.
The title of her solo exhibition, "Catharsis," frames the pieces as a feat of emotional and mental purging, leading to a sense of renewal. The body of work can be viewed as an exploration into the human subconscious, but more particularly, they represent her own personal depictions of anxiety and paranoia and her relationship to those sensations, spawned both in memory and physical sensation. The collection serves as a personal narrative as much as it does an opportunity to delve into the dreamlike subconscious.
Alvarado's creative odyssey into the psyche doesn't stop here — she received her BFA from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and she will continue her artistic education with an MFA this coming fall at the University of Notre Dame.
Free, 7-11 p.m. Saturday, May 6, on view by appointment May 6-June 17, Presa House Gallery, 725 S. Presa St., presahouse.com.
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