Celebrity nail artist Juan Alvear rose to fame in 2016 after becoming well-known for his purposefully "messy" and ornate manicures, which frequently covered his clients' hands and knuckles. His creations featured vivid abstract doodling in neon glow-in-the-dark colors, Barbie pink splashes, and deep blue polish swirls that evoked the mood of a stormy sea.
Alvear was honing his painting and sculpture techniques at that time while enrolled in Cooper Union's esteemed fine arts department in New York City. He was a dedicated student who spent the majority of his time working on his projects in a shared studio with six other students.
"I wasn't taking those nails too seriously at all," Alvear laughed as he recalled the past in a video chat with CNN, referring to his lighthearted manicures as "experiments" done mainly for fun. He could keep the extra nail polish in exchange for the ability to use it to create paintings and drawings, some of which he subsequently turned in for academic credit.
It was the ideal complement to his inventive artistic approach and his imaginative playfulness. Alvear creates incredibly strange, captivating, and eye-catching mixed-media works of art that combine dystopian surrealism, fairytale fantasy, and a distinct Y2K flare with unusual materials like metal spikes, enormous diamonds, and glossy finishes.
Numerous of Alvear's iconic creations feature incredibly lifelike renditions of everyday oddities, such as an ice sculpture of a Barbie head or a working hourglass that transforms an entire hand into a striking artwork. Alvear claims that these works of art depict a sort of "twisted fever dream," in which everything "exists in excess for no reason."
Medium-length acrylic nails gained popularity in the 1970s thanks to Donna Summer, and American track sensation Florence Griffith-Joyner, who set two world records in the 1988 Olympics with a striking six-inch set of red, white, and blue acrylics, went on to become a fashion icon in the 1980s. In the 1990s and early 2000s, statement nails remained a must-have cosmetic item for black women, greatly influencing hip-hop culture through icons like Missy Elliott and Lil' Kim.
The curator of "ACRYLICS: Hidden Sculptural Art," a photobook and exhibition headquartered in New York, Isis Darks, claims that the more avant-garde sculptural nail designs first appeared in Tokyo's Shibuya District in the early 2000s.While Alvear excels in intricate sculptures that are unfit for daily use, she often favors designs that are more "practical" and intended to help her clients easily traverse their daily routines.
Kawajiri told CNN that she noticed an increase in the popularity of Alvear-inspired designs on TikTok and Instagram during the COVID-19 lockdowns, despite their impracticality. Sculptural nail art became popular when people started trying out DIY manicures at home, and lengthy nails became less of a problem. According to Kawajiri, Alvear was responsible for this style's "going viral" during this time. This result bolsters Darks' theory, which holds that the epidemic had a major impact on social media subcultures and culture at large, changing nail art patterns and fostering community growth.