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Artist Statement:
My Paintings are an exploration of how negative emotions and actions spread to effect beyond its immediate surroundings. I use abstraction and subjective interpretation of real scenarios found in nature, to reflect on the palpable emotive intimacy of a shared human experience. I am particularly interested in focusing on rarely expressed emotions, like desperation, anger, or fear. I explore these morose throbbing emotions to draw connections with the natural world, and create a picture of the influence that these emotions create on each other and the environment.
Nature is used to express our physical stress, as well as isolation and interconnectedness. There are many poetic commonalities between the natural world and the human experience that I am interested in. Looking at eco-systems, for example, presents a beautiful picture of how interconnected and dependent one species of plant or animal is on another. I believe that this translates towards the human experience in relation to our emotionally driven actions towards each other and the environment. Similarly parallel are cycles of life and death in nature that are reflective of ebb and flow patterns within our lives. I am attracted to graphic images of violence and pain in the natural world as a way to create a visual picture of an emotional scope that is otherwise internalized within humans.
I like to experiment with the landscape to add an emotional and narrative setting for the animals to exist in. I began integrating collage elements in many paintings as a way to draw direct relationships between the natural world and our everyday life. I use popular culture magazines because they present a direct contrast to the natural landscape and animals. The fragmented cutouts are integrated into the landscape and function as a fragment of a past existence, something growing, invading, intertwined, overpowering or a victim of the environment. Elements of the landscape often weave in and out of various states, shifting from such possibilities as animals seeming powerful or a victim, to convey different narratives. This alternating influence is also a way to explores how negative acts can often triggered from feelings of venerability or hurt.
As the possible interpretation of the subject changes so does the emotional reflection of the scene. Using animals and landscape to depict these emotions presents another way to understand the environment, and allows one to reflect on the universality of these ominous feelings.
Bio:
Angela Lopez studied painting at the Kansas City art institute. Her paintings use the exploration of alternating power struggles between humans and nature as a way to express gloomy ominous and desperate emotions. Her artwork has been featured in group exhibitions at H&R Block ArtSpace, The Dolphin Gallery, and Leedy-Voulkos Art Center in Kansas City MO, as well as Buenos Aires Argentina at Proyecto' ace Studios and at the Beasley gallery in Arizona. In 2008, she was awarded an Avenue of the Arts temporary public art grant and was chosen to participate in the Creative Capitol professional development program. She premiered her first solo show, "On the Upside," at the Urban Culture Project Space in 2009. In 2010 she curated her second exhibition “Community+Loneliness” at the Paragraph Gallery with Urban Culture Project in Kansas City Mo. Angela lives and works in her hometown of Chicago.
My Paintings are an exploration of how negative emotions and actions spread to effect beyond its immediate surroundings. I use abstraction and subjective interpretation of real scenarios found in nature, to reflect on the palpable emotive intimacy of a shared human experience. I am particularly interested in focusing on rarely expressed emotions, like desperation, anger, or fear. I explore these morose throbbing emotions to draw connections with the natural world, and create a picture of the influence that these emotions create on each other and the environment.
Nature is used to express our physical stress, as well as isolation and interconnectedness. There are many poetic commonalities between the natural world and the human experience that I am interested in. Looking at eco-systems, for example, presents a beautiful picture of how interconnected and dependent one species of plant or animal is on another. I believe that this translates towards the human experience in relation to our emotionally driven actions towards each other and the environment. Similarly parallel are cycles of life and death in nature that are reflective of ebb and flow patterns within our lives. I am attracted to graphic images of violence and pain in the natural world as a way to create a visual picture of an emotional scope that is otherwise internalized within humans.
I like to experiment with the landscape to add an emotional and narrative setting for the animals to exist in. I began integrating collage elements in many paintings as a way to draw direct relationships between the natural world and our everyday life. I use popular culture magazines because they present a direct contrast to the natural landscape and animals. The fragmented cutouts are integrated into the landscape and function as a fragment of a past existence, something growing, invading, intertwined, overpowering or a victim of the environment. Elements of the landscape often weave in and out of various states, shifting from such possibilities as animals seeming powerful or a victim, to convey different narratives. This alternating influence is also a way to explores how negative acts can often triggered from feelings of venerability or hurt.
As the possible interpretation of the subject changes so does the emotional reflection of the scene. Using animals and landscape to depict these emotions presents another way to understand the environment, and allows one to reflect on the universality of these ominous feelings.
Bio:
Angela Lopez studied painting at the Kansas City art institute. Her paintings use the exploration of alternating power struggles between humans and nature as a way to express gloomy ominous and desperate emotions. Her artwork has been featured in group exhibitions at H&R Block ArtSpace, The Dolphin Gallery, and Leedy-Voulkos Art Center in Kansas City MO, as well as Buenos Aires Argentina at Proyecto' ace Studios and at the Beasley gallery in Arizona. In 2008, she was awarded an Avenue of the Arts temporary public art grant and was chosen to participate in the Creative Capitol professional development program. She premiered her first solo show, "On the Upside," at the Urban Culture Project Space in 2009. In 2010 she curated her second exhibition “Community+Loneliness” at the Paragraph Gallery with Urban Culture Project in Kansas City Mo. Angela lives and works in her hometown of Chicago.
