A fourth generation Phoenician, Annie Lopez chooses to share her family’s history using art as a vehicle for this storytelling. For roughly 17 years she functioned as an office administrator for a local organization addressing exposure for Latin American artists residing in Arizona, MARS. MARS was an anachronism for Movimiento Artistico del Rio Salado.
More recently the artist took employment with professional seamstresses. This experience has contributed to her understanding of clothing construction. A grant from the National Association of Latina Arts and Cultures has funded the further pursuit of her Lopez’ style of narrative sculptures.
The artist conveys personal truths as well as humorous commentary. One dress she fashioned titled “The Result of Mexican Food”, is decidedly generous it is proportions. Another titled “I Never Learned Spanish” reveals an unexpected personal truth.
Choosing to make art as early as 1982, Lopez has received grants, awards and fellowships dating from 1993 forward. One of the more prestigious fellowship grants was issued by The Art Matters Foundation located out of New York City (1995). The following year the Arizona Commission on the Arts chose her to receive a fellowship grant. In 1998 the Rockefeller Foundation provided a fellowship grant. In 2000 Lopez was selected as the winner of a First Place award among other artists participating in an exhibition titled Arte Latino el la Ciudad conducted by the Phoenix Center for Community Art in Arizona. In 2012 she was the recipient of Contemporary Forum’s Mid-Career Artist Award, resulting in a grant and a subsequent exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum.
Lopez has participated in invitational group exhibitions emanating in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Arvada, Colorado; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Mariposa, California, Tucson, Arizona; Chicago, Illinois; Wickenburg, Arizona; Washington, D.C., Toledo, Ohio and Santa Cruz, California. Outside of Denver, Colorado and Los Angeles, California; her solo exhibitions have largely taken place in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Opening October 21, 2017 running through February 18, 2018 at the Tucson Museum of Art Dress Matters: Clothing as Metaphor is an exhibition heralding 50 internationally based artists, many of them textbook such as Joseph Beuys, Jim Dine, Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Raphael Soyer plus Annie Lopez. Be sure to catch it when heading south to Tucson, AZ.
To learn more about Lopez’ work http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/arts/annie-lopez-on-her-new-work-and-exhibition-at-walter-art-gallery-in-scottsdale-8849471
Corinne Cain of SavvyCollector.com