No. 01Painting series
Interference
The current large-format series: layered spray fields where a hard masked edge meets a fade with nothing between them.
Ongoing since 2022
Exhibition
Cruz Alvarado
Painter · spray and canvas
Aerosol does two things nothing else does: a hard masked edge and a fade with no brush in it. I build paintings out of only those two moves.
- Location
- San Antonio, TX
- Status
- Open to exhibitions and commissioned works
No. 01The work
I make large abstract paintings on canvas with spray paint, masking, and cut stencils.
Media
- Large canvases
- Masked edges
- Atomised fades
Subjects
- Abstraction
- Layering
- Studio practice
No. 02Works
No. 02Process
Masks in place
Work photographed mid build, tape and cut stencils still on the canvas and the overspray halo still on the wall.
No. 03Studio
The material shelf
The crates, the sorted cans, and the jar of caps. Every fade in the work comes from choosing one of those caps.
No. 04Studies
Edge studies
Small format works made to test one thing: how close a fade can sit to a hard edge before the edge stops reading.
No. 05Studio
Strata
The storage rack, where the stacked edges of finished canvases show every layer the front of the painting hides.
No. 06Exhibition
Solo show, Ice House Annex
The fourth solo: large works hung one to a wall, with the room between them this work needs to be read.
4th solo show, 2025
No. 03Catalogue essay
I painted walls for six years before I ever stretched a canvas, and the wall taught me the thing I still work from: you commit at arm's length and you cannot take a pass back. I moved the practice indoors in 2014 and took a studio in a converted ice house in 2016. The paintings are built in layers, mask, spray, pull the tape, mask again, sometimes twenty passes before one of them is finished. Four solo shows since 2018. I run an aerosol workshop out of the studio twice a year.
No. 04Selected recognition
4 solo shows since 2018
Most recently the Ice House Annex, 2025
Studio since 2016
Converted ice house, San Antonio
6 years painting walls
Before the practice moved to canvas in 2014
No. 05Provenance
2016 - present
Studio Painter, Ice House Studios
Large-format spray work on canvas.
2014 - 2016
Canvas practice, no fixed studio
Moved the work indoors from walls.
2008 - 2014
Commissioned wall work
Six years painting walls around San Antonio.
No. 06Commissions
Commissioned works
Large-format canvases made to a wall, with the scale and palette settled before any tape goes down.
Exhibitions
Solo and group work for galleries and project spaces, hung with the room the paintings need.
Aerosol workshop
A two-day workshop on masking, caps, and fades, run out of the studio twice a year.
No. 07Texts
You cannot take a pass back
Spray does not lift. Every layer is a decision you live with, which is why the work gets built in masks rather than in edits.
The edge is the subject
A fade on its own is atmosphere. Put a hard masked edge next to it and the painting suddenly has an argument.
No. 08Gallery notes
01
What does Cruz make?
Large abstract paintings on canvas, built with spray paint, masking tape, and cut stencils, from a studio in San Antonio.
02
What has he shown?
Four solo shows since 2018, most recently seven large works at the Ice House Annex in 2025.
03
Does he teach?
Yes. An aerosol workshop runs out of the studio twice a year.
No. 09Contact
Gallery·shown with a fictional demo record
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