Alvaro Labañino (b in Miami, 1989) graduated from Florida International University with a BFA in 2012 having majored in Painting with a minor in Art History. Labañino creates paintings that function as thresholds to his mind. Through his artworks he exposes a world of thoughts, life experiences, dreams, nightmares, and fears which he often materializes in the form of personal objects, domestic spaces, and landscapes. His works focus on his immediate and private retreats, as well as on his purposeful travels outside of the United States. Labañino saturates the commonplace with significance and emotion, often portraying the whereabouts of his native Little Havana or the interior of his studio-apartment. The spaces are devoid of the human figure and describe the solitude that he habitually seeks, and which life sometimes imposes without invitation. His artworks are demonstrative of these reticent feelings. His paintings are methodically structured, despite that they may be sometimes somewhat enigmatic in their breakdown. Often, images are segmented into flat areas of colors and contours that interact in varying intensities and temperatures that communicate the artist's intended temperament.
