Mariela Álvarez Herrera
Mariela Álvarez (San José, Costa Rica, 1996) is an artist whose work encompasses sculpture, painting, and drawing. Her practice focuses on the relationship between nature and the body, seen as forces in constant flux, adaptability, and resistance to categorization. She studied at the School of Visual Arts at the University of Costa Rica, where she earned her Bachelor's and Licentiate degrees in Plastic Design with an emphasis on Pictorial Design, culminating her studies with a solo exhibition.
In her work, bodies and nature defy imposed expectations, manifesting a perpetual drive for transformation. Through intricate textures, fluid forms, and subtle details, Álvarez explores the connection between the internal and external realms—human, nature, and cosmos—blurring the boundaries that separate them and evoking a sense of ambiguity.
Her choice of beeswax as the primary material in her sculptures symbolizes the mutable nature of the body, serving as a second skin that shapes her pieces. From its extraction, this material links the bodies of flowers, bees, and humans in a shared process, reflecting the interconnectedness of different realms of life.
Currently, she works in her studio in downtown San José, where she is preparing an exhibition that investigates pre-Columbian ritual objects and how they reflect an understanding of nature, objects, and bodies as an interwoven whole rather than entirely separate entities. In their design, these ritual objects abstract forms from different realms so they can be read as a single body—an approach that Álvarez adopts to represent this unity in a contemporary context.
"Within an extractivist and utilitarian economic model, we tend to perceive nature as something to be exploited, a decorative and passive element. However, nature continuously responds with an undeniable presence and force. In these pre-Columbian objects, I see the respect—even fear—that was once held for it, and they seem to be an attempt to embody and revere it. My work seeks to represent nature from this other perspective, where forms merge indistinctly and constantly confront us. In my opinion, Nature gives us a hint of the Divine, of beauty, terror, cruelty and boundless love."
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