Subtle balances of textures and colors on canvas are focal points of the vibrant and energetic artworks Created by Costa Rican artist, Rebeca Alvarado Soto. With her diverse artistic talents of dance, ballet and painting, one can always visualize the movement in her works.

Fascinated with the art produced by her grandfather, painting became a necessity for Rebeca. When she set up her easel and started a drawing or painting, she became mesmerized. “It was a wonderful and whimsical world, where I could convey all my thoughts into images,” says Alvarado. “And even now, every time I am in front of a canvas, it invades and transforms me; and it’s amazing, I don’t think when I paint. I let myself be carried away and my thoughts and feelings appear on the canvas.”

Though a formally-trained and a practicing psychologist, Rebeca’s artistic nature kept gnawing at her. So after completing her education at the Universidad Nacional, she became a dancer and choreographer. Though much of her attention includes activities relating to her contemporary dance ballet, where she performs at the National Theatre in San Jose, the creative side of Rebeca always yearns for more. With her post-graduate courses in education she works as dance, ballet and visual arts teacher, choreographer and still as a dancer at institutions like Una Vision Mundial, UCR, Colegio Artístico Prof. Felipe Pérez Pérez, and Danza Piazzola, Abend.

Rebeca has also participated in numerous exhibits and activities throughout Costa Rica and internationally, including Cuba. “But painting remains a necessity for me,” says Alvarado. “It is in my core and an obsession. Like eating or sleeping. I just have to do it.” It carries her into a parallel world, and she transcends to wonderful places through the act of creating a painting.

As a dancer, Rebeca uses body language to communicate what maybe can’t be defined in words or writings, and as a visualartist to transfer all of that to the canvas in colors and textures. Each discipline influences the other. When she paints, she dances; and when she dances, she paints. They are interrelated and cannot be separated. Her paintings always represent the symbiotic relationship between humans and nature, with the colors demonstrative of Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

You can see Rebeca’s current exhibit at the Hidden Garden Art Gallery, located 5 kilometers. west of the Daniel Oduber International Airport, or for more information contact Hidden Garden Art Gallery at www.HiddenGardenArt.com or info@HiddenGardenArt.com