KDR Opens Susan Kim Alvarez’s “The Best Show at Art Basel” in Miami
- camilarosiaz
- 8 hours ago
- 2 min read
KDR will present The Best Show During Art Basel, a solo exhibition by Susan Kim Alvarez, opening November 30 and running through January 10, 2026, at the gallery’s Miami location.
Susan Kim Alvarez,"Mouth of Miami", 2025, Acrylic, Ink, and Guache on 3-part canvas,( Left Panel shown ) overall dimensions 60 x 144 in. SAL0138
Alvarez’s paintings explore how culture, memory, and humor intersect in daily life. Drawing from Cuban, Vietnamese, and Jewish influences, her works examine the coexistence of celebration and contradiction, blending the ornamental with the sacred, the absurd with the intimate. Florida emerges as a setting where folklore, routine, and myth overlap, turning local bars, parties, and street scenes into spaces of communal storytelling.
The exhibition includes compositions dense with activity, echoing the layered narratives of Bruegel’s village scenes. The centerpiece, Mouth of Miami, reflects on shifting ideas surrounding sin, pleasure, and personal expression, tracing how these concepts evolve across generations. Throughout the show, several works reimagine the artist’s relatives in earlier stages of their lives—moments both remembered and invented—using painting as a way to reinterpret family history.
Alvarez describes her approach as a process where memory distorts into myth, allowing reverence, satire, guilt, and joy to coexist. The works form a continuum between lived experience and imagined narrative, transforming personal history into shared cultural reflection.
Susan Kim Alvarez, "Mouth of Miami", 2025, Acrylic, Ink, and Gouache on 3-part canvas (Right Panel shown), overall dimensions 60 x 144 in. SAL0138
Born in Honolulu in 2000, Alvarez studied Interdisciplinary Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2023 and has presented solo exhibitions at the NSU Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale and the Storage Archive Gallery in New York. Her work has appeared in group exhibitions in New York, London, and Munich, and she is currently an artist in residence at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Miami. Her paintings are included in public and private collections such as Marquez Art Projects and the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale.