Juan Alvear’s nail art might alarm you at first, but that’s part of the fun. Describing his style as eccentric, experimental, and optimistic, it goes without saying that you shouldn’t expect to find a minimalist manicure in his portfolio.
A graduate of Cooper Union, where he studied sculpting and painting, his nail art draws from his artistic background (and, some might argue, doesn’t fall short of being art in and of itself).
“I see a huge relationship formally between my paintings and my nails and they definitely inspire/inform one another,” remarked Alvear in an interview with W Magazine. “I see both my nail sculptures and my paintings as ornaments of sorts: one exists to decorate the hand and the other for space.”
According to him, if it wasn’t for his background in sculpture and painting, his obsession with nail art might not even come to exist, and his nails most probably wouldn’t look as sculptural as they do now. “To be honest I don’t really separate the nails I make from the art I make,” he says. “They are all an extension of me and the nails function almost like a series in a larger body of work.”
And, judging by his impressive following, he’s not the only one to treat his nails as art. Amongst his celebrity clients, you can find A-listers like Rihanna, Erykah Badu, and Rico Nasty. But his Instagram page isn’t for the faint of heart.
