While her choice of media varies between each artwork—from oil to watercolor, acrylic, or charcoal—the theme that ties together each piece in Liz Poulin Alvarez’s new landscape exhibition is exactly what its title suggests.
Presented by the Lompoc Art Association, California Landmarks is the second exhibit to be held at Cypress Gallery since its official reopening to the public in August. The show opened on Sept. 2 and is scheduled to run through Sept. 27.
“Being an intrepid traveler, painting outside gives me more enjoyment to appreciate the sensory feel of a place,” Alvarez said, expressing her preference for plein air and painting on the go during her travels. “California Landmarks is a collection of local scenes that visitors and residents alike recognize as they travel through Central California.”
Born and raised in Maine, Alvarez didn’t move to California until after college, but she’s been painting nearly her whole life, she said.
“I learned to view the natural world with the eye of an artist and began my formal art training at 8 years old,” said Alvarez, who went on to study art at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
“A job after college brought me to California where I fell in love with the landscape and met my future husband to be,” she said.
“It was not until I moved from Maine to the Central California Coast that I learned to appreciate the variety of textures and nuances of green in the landscape,” added Alvarez, who said she aims to capture the subtleties of weather and changing seasons within her works through varying amounts of shadow and light.
A full-time art teacher at Lompoc High School, Alvarez first came across the Cypress Gallery while searching for a local venue where she could promote and showcase her students’ artworks. She described the gallery as a positive support system for local artists of all abilities and ages.
“There is something for every level of artist at the gallery, from the budding high school artist who is looking for support to the more established artist who enjoys being in a local community of other like-minded artists,” Alvarez said.
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alvarez painted around 20 new landscapes, all included in the California Landmarks exhibit.
“The pandemic gave me renewed appreciation for my surroundings and that’s what I wanted to paint—to promote a sense of stability of a recognizable place and the calm memories that go with it,” she said.
Although the pandemic put a halt to most of her planned travels this year, Alvarez found comfort in revisiting old photographs from previous trips, which also fueled her creativity.
“Looking at photos of past vacations helped me to feel better and take my mind off of current events,” said Alvarez, who opted to paint landscapes closer to home, including many destinations she had already painted before.
“It felt natural to return to familiar places to paint outside and appreciate my surroundings with renewed interest,” she said.
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood embraces familiarity, occasionally to a fault. Pop his comfort bubble at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 17-24, 2020.