Alvar Menas – Spain

International Artist

Alvar Mena (Palencia, Spain, 1988) first trained as a musician and then as a visual artist.

After studying Fine Arts at the University of Salamanca, Philosophy, and various postgraduate courses, Alvar began working as a tattoo artist. What started as a temporary solution to the problem of survival ended up forming a close relationship with the world of graphic possibilities in tattooing.

Over more than 10 years, Alvar developed a body of work characterised by criticism and sarcasm, heavily influenced by the Spanish tradition of graphic humour. In 2021, after a long period dedicated almost exclusively to tattooing and occasional design and illustration work, he returned to painting and later to ceramic sculpture. In these fields, he continues, in some way, the conceptual project developed in tattooing, seeking to harness the broad range of plastic resources of both disciplines to sensibly support the ideas in his work.