DECENTERED
ARTS

Alvar Jacomet’s Textures of San Francisco marks Decentered Studio’s Debut Show

Alvar Jacomet's paintings are a unique spin on the urban landscapes. His style builds texture and dimension resulting in paintings like no other. Learn more about his story, the process and the show.

By Liz CahillPublished on 10/5/2025
A person in a gallery observes colorful, abstract paintings of buildings with vibrant blue, red, and orange tones, conveying a reflective mood.
Alvar Jacomet's work at Decentered StudioPhoto by Monica Gallagher

Decentered Arts is proud to launch our new gallery program at Decentered Studio by featuring the work of Alvar Jacomet (b. 1995, Los Angeles, California), an American-Argentinian figurative painter whose work transforms the familiar architecture of San Francisco into striking new forms. His show, Textures of San Francisco is the first to deck our walls.

Working primarily in acrylic, Alvar builds depth and dimension into his paintings with unexpected materials such as household objects, construction caulking, and textured surfaces that echo the city’s layered histories. His main subject matter often centers on San Francisco’s Victorian architecture, but through abstraction, distortion, and recomposition, his work becomes something more: an exploration of the city’s fragility and its constant transformation.

Alvar’s work has been exhibited at the De Young Museum , as well as at numerous Bay Area spaces including Mothbelly Gallery and Strike Slip Gallery . We are honored to present his work as the first featured artist at Decentered Studio , continuing a dialogue between local artists and the changing city we call home.

Textures of San Francisco is on view until October 8th. We are open for free coworking 11am-6ish 1175 Folsom, Monday to Thursday or you can view the show by appointment, just email studio@decentered.org , we are very flexible and stoked to give you a tour. Inventory and price list here. View the show virtually here. 

Q&A

Q: What draws you to San Francisco’s Victorian architecture?

A: I think the Victorian’s facade has a very lego-esque geometry to it. That’s how they were built originally, you’d select this or that unique piece of molding and they’d be attached together. Using photoshop, I crop up the houses into shapes I find interesting, and then collage them together. I also just think they’re also very fun to look at, you can catch little stories of people’s lives from a walk past their window, or there may be a cat judging you. 

Q: What story about San Francisco do you hope your paintings tell?

A: I like to reflect on how we give this city so much permanence as it currently is, even though it’s still so young and sitting on a giant faultline. All of this while leading in so many industries with increasingly intangible but global influence and power. 

Q: How has living and working in San Francisco shaped your perspective as an artist?

A: The architecture has definitely shaped my perspective for several years now. It’s also where I found a painting teacher that worked for me and also gave me so much momentum to work from. Those 2 things have really been the foundation for my art career so far. 

Q: What makes SF’s art scene unique vs. other cities? 

A:  It’s a teeny-tiny city so you end up meeting friends of friends at all the art functions and communities can grow and combine with others very quickly. The community is also very receptive to it, you can find wallspace in all sorts of local businesses if you look for it. 

Artist Statement

“We are always in dialogue with the built environment, negotiating the tension between the enduring and the ephemeral. My current body of work explores this tension, seeking to capture the dynamic interplay between the built environment and its slow but inexorable changes.”

Over the past three years, Alvar has developed a body of work that disassembles and reimagines San Francisco’s iconic architectural motifs. By collecting modular elements—often drawn from the bay windows and ornate façades of Victorian homes—he rebuilds them into new landscapes and narratives. Windows become story frames; warped lines reveal the pressures of time. By incorporating construction materials like caulking, the city’s unstable geography seeps into each canvas, making the structures feel both permanent and precarious.

📸 Follow Alvar’s work: @alvar.jacomet

📧 Contact: jacovarius@gmail.com

Curator’s Note

Decentered’s previous visual art show took place at Uzay Gallery. The Journey “Home” by Maya Tohidi, was a deliberate and heartfelt farewell to both Uzay Gallery and The Center SF. At that moment, Maya and I were each losing homes that had shaped our daily lives: she was displaced from The Center’s residence, and I was being displaced from Uzay Gallery, a Mission live/work space occupied by creatives since the 1990s, after five years as master tenant. The ripple effects were enormous, nearly 30 people were displaced between both residences and The Center SF tea bar, which had long hosted our open mic, closed shortly after, leaving a massive void in the community. The Journey “Home” became both a lament for what was lost and a love letter to these spaces and their people.

Through luck, persistence, and the generosity of the community, we were able to open Decentered Studio, a new space where art and community could once again converge. When we first encountered Alvar’s work at The Faight Collective’s creative lounge—the same place where our open mic found refuge after The Center’s closure—we immediately knew he was the right artist to inaugurate this chapter. His show_ Textures of San Francisco_, with its layered reflections on homes, architecture, and transformation, felt like the natural bridge between what we had lost and what we were building anew.

Maya’s show closed one door with tenderness and grief; Alvar’s opens another with resilience and gratitude. Together they bookend a difficult transition, carrying us from displacement to renewal. Decentered Studio is our new home, and we’re honored to break it in with Alvar’s vision. A reminder that while spaces shift, our community endures and remakes itself.

A person views three architectural drawings on a vibrant yellow wall in an art gallery, conveying a contemplative and artistic atmosphere.
1 / 4
Alvar Jacomet's work at Decentered StudioPhoto by Monica Gallagher
Decentered Logo

About Liz Cahill

Liz Cahill is a poet, producer, artist and curator based in the Mission. Her writing explores the impacts of late stage capitalism, income inequality and waste, while trying to find beauty in the garbage age. She’s the co-founder of Decentered Arts, a non-profit building community through art of all mediums and the Piles Collective. Her first book Garbage Age lady is fourthcoming on Decentered Press.