Andrius Alvarez-Backus - Some Dissemblance Required

"Some Dissemblance Required"

Solo Pop-Up Exhibition presented by Happenings
Chelsea Walls
March 25th–April 6th, 2025

Installation view of "Some Dissemblance Required" by Andrius Alvarez-Backus

Chelsea Walls is pleased to present Some Dissemblance Required, a solo exhibition by Andrius Alvarez-Backus, in collaboration with Happenings.The works on display take the concept of dissemblance as their point of departure, or the act of disguising one’s true feelings. Through various tactics of abstraction and transformation, the exhibition probes the hidden as a sacred yet often overexposed realm of potential.

In the eight exhibited paintings, the substrate consists of hand-sutured textiles intimately connected to the body: clothing, bedsheets, tablecloths, upholstery fabric, bandages, muscle wraps, and more. By collaging these somatically charged materials, Alvarez-Backus explores traces of intimacy without relying on explicit legibility. The artist’s subtractive process of sanding between layers of paint reflects the show’s central theme of seeking the fugitive, and unveiling the camouflaged.

The accompanying sculptures transform everyday objects—used towels, lawn chairs, window blinds—into personal allegories of desire, embodiment, and memory. These familiar items reside on the boundaries between public and private spaces, and the images fragmented across their surfaces stage domestic fantasies of stillness and leisure. Despite their poetic presence, the sculptures resist clear interpretation, inviting viewers to question the ways bodies are shaped and reshaped through ornamentation, material culture, and intimate entanglements.