Those of us who have dreamed—which I pray is everyone reading this—know how it goes: A cacophony of vignettes rattle through your unconscious, some a single flash, some endless, though in reality, they’re all only a few seconds in duration. No matter their absurdity, what we see in our dreams is largely what we’ve seen in real life, consciously or subconsciously registered, though often distorted or removed from context. Mirroring our convoluted dreams is DL Alvarez’s “Dormmagory,” a collection of graphite and colored pencil drawings that, viewed together, resemble the flickering montage of a dream state.

Simultaneously bulbous and cavernous, the pustule-covered face of the figure in Witch (2025) is a fitting beginning to the beautifully twisted ride Alvarez takes us on. It’s disarming, yet magnetic, and oddly reminiscent of Giueseppe Arcimboldo’s portraits where his subjects’ faces were formed from ripe flora and produce. While Arcimboldo’s were a play on “you are what you eat” and a splendorous nod to consumption, Alvarez’s is a little more “19th-century woman plagued by consumption.”

The two men leaning over an acoustic guitar in Lesson (2025) could seem like a jarring juxtaposition against Witch, with their 70s shags and ever-so-slightly touching hands—truthfully, it’s romantic. But the dissonance between the two pieces is what makes the show work. The exhibition is a shuffle of the insidious and the blissful, the subdued and the loud. Some pieces are close-ups that hint at more, some are purposefully distorted, and some are as clear as a photograph. Walking through is a waking dream, bits of which I’m sure will reappear in your sleep at night.

DL Alvarez: Dormmagory
Guerrero Gallery
3407 Verdugo Rd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90065
On view through April 12, 2025