This document provides information about the artwork "Smell Like You Mean It" by Ray Alvarado. It is currently located at the Council For the Arts Gallery in Jacksonville, NC. The piece is an etching on hard plastic that contains both natural and unnatural abstract elements in a random landscape. While it does not have a specific purpose for the community, it was created by the artist to occupy his mind while waiting for another work to dry. The reviewer chose this piece because it caught their eye with its energy and randomness, and there is always something new to discover within the work. The art connects to styles from various time periods that fill space with abstract shapes and designs.

1. Ray Alvarado
Christopher Padrick
““SmellSmell
LikeLike
YouYou
MeanMean
It”It”

2. Location Of The Piece

The piece is
currently located
at the Council For
the Arts Gallery. At
826 New Bridge
Street
Jacksonville, NC
28540

It is on sale in their
sales gallery.

3. Map To Location

4. Description of The ArtworkDescription of The Artwork

The piece is a etching on hard plastic that is two
dementional. It contains naturalistic aspects and
also unnatural components. It is very abstract,
it's a random landscape containing some
technological items, such as a U.F.O. And a
train, It has shapes and patterns within it like a
brick wall, a wooden building with windows, and
a pool ball. Its asymmetrical as far as the
movement and energy is focused more towards
the middle even though there is no empty space
within the etching. It also contains a few non-
objective items, which are not recognizable but
they form with the rest of the work.

5. Purpose of “smell like you
mean it”

This piece doesn't really have a purpose to
the community except for the money that
could come from it's sale at the Art Council
building.

The piece actually started out as an 'extra'
piece he did to occupy his wandering mind
(Which attributes to the nonsensical aspect)
while he was waiting on a screen-print to dry,
and the proofs came out so nicely that Ray
decided to stick with it.

6. Chosen because....

I chose this piece because it instantly caught
my eye while I was looking around, and it
appealed to me because it was totally random
with a lot of energy which matched my ever
rambling mind. It's also like a hunt to see what
else you can find in the piece, and there's
always something new to find that you don't
notice the first time you view it. It also
resembled “happy drawings” I do in my free-
time where one part forms to another using
most free space.

7. The Art and Me
*It was raining really
hard when I took this
photo.*

8. Al l About Al varado

Ray was born in 1984, in San Juan,
Puerto Rico. He was raised here on the
east coast mostly around the eastern
North Carolina area since his days in
elementary school.

He looks to anything and everything for
inspiration, He took an interest in art after
he got out of high school and began
getting tattoos,a few years ago when he
felt he wasn't doing what he wanted with
himself. He sees absolute freedom as a
hinderance and prefers at least a bit of
guidance in his work, the style he likes are
the atypical and nonsensical things and
prefers on painting on larger scales.

9. The Art
Connection
The piece is an example of 'Horror Vacui' meaning fear
of empty space made popular in the Victorian Age. It
also carries on the aspects of Arabesque art which
also contains works that fill free space, and works of
the Greek during the Geometric age and some from
the French Renaissance time period, which use
abstract shapes and designs with various forms of
shading and light distribution that add to the energy
and filling of space. They also seem as a blur of
random pieces that with further examination get to
become individual pieces that attribute to the whole
and filling of space.

10. Compare for Yourself
As you can see there are many aspects that this
piece has with those mentioned in the last slide.
Jean Duvet (France, Dijon (?), 1485 -
1561) General view of the island
Adolf Wölfli