A virtuosic painter, Mexican artist Alejandro Rivera weaves ingeniously complex allegories for contemporary times. His source material covers vast terrarin: A single series of paintings, for example, may include references as diverse as 14th Century religious art, early photography, Pop art, Greek mythology, economic theory and ancient history. All converge to form irresistible enigmas, careful collages that invite highly imaginitive readings. Analysing his pictures, we see that nearly every element in these immensely detailed works--a drop of water, a clock, a mirror, a stone wall, a shelf, a flower, a cup--figures into a greater narrative that speaks incisively about the human condition.

Energy and mastery pervade every inch of Rivera’s canvases. He does not shy from tackling the likes of Jorge Luis Borges’ dense philosophies or Velasquez’s brilliant legacy, while on a technical level he revels in performing ever more difficult feats. Problems of transparency and shifting textures are handled with characteristic grace. His work incorporates almost every imaginable surface--fabric, wood, glass, steel, grass, marble, tile, and even paint itself. A woman’s legs meld into a stone wall; her arm follows the contours of a landscape that becomes a cloth near the bottom of the painting.

As we have come to expect from Rivera, however, extravagant display couches deep meaning. “I tried to include as many different surfaces as possible in these paintings,” he says. “Some are man-made, and some are taken from nature, but all are related to human creation... As humans, we create things that reflect who we are and what we have achieved as a society. Most objects are thus a metaphor for our existence.”

More than anything else, perhaps, these are paintings about the nature of time--which is to say that they directly address the condition of being. Rivera’s work incessantly juxtaposes the old and the new: He might drape a fresh, beautiful, languid women in crumbling surroundings, or depict a pop-culture artifact alongside an ancient relic. Says Rivera: “The depiction of humans within their constructions, and the inevitable decay of both biological and inanimate entities, are constant in my work. The reappearance of an old master painting in an unlikely place gives it new meaning, and yet also questions our ability to produce anything truly original.” Indeed--an exploration of any Rivera painting reveals a world of cyclical time, where past informs present, future informs past, and metaphors span centuries.