Nicola Lopez
Tough Knot, 2008
Ink, gouache, graphite, 28.75” x 28.75”
It’s hard not to appreciate a contemporary artist who helps us to define and often redefine our environmental perception. Just as young children are given words to describe all that they comprehend, artist Nicola Lopez gifts us images to help better understand all that we feel about our urban world. The fact that Ms. Lopez resides in Brooklyn and teaches at NYC’s Columbia University is helpful for understanding the artists’ daily structural inspirations. Not to say that Nicola Lopez wouldn’t be equally armed to create such pieces from anywhere in the world, and she’d be the first to express that her work is not interpretive of specific physical structures, but rather a fantastic approach to the psychological underpinnings of the urban environment.
In Nicola Lopez’s urban landscapes, objects rise up, fall down, bend, brake, become entangeld and even embrace one another. Steel girders appear stable and statuesque on moment, flimsy and vulnerable the next. If one thing is for certain in the artist’s portrayal of urban life, it’s the uncertainty of it all. Collectors of Lopez’s works appreciate the artist’s commentary about the confusion that often accompanies the wonderment involved in urban planning.
In addition to illuminating the the wild juxapositions of the ultra urban landscape’s disharmonious shapes, Nicola Lopez also shows us just how downright confusing it can all become. In drawings entitled Tough Knot and Large Tangle, the artist is even more direct about it. Pulling in a myriad of materials comprised in building the the city – air conditioning coils, power lines, girders, plastic contruction materials and any number of wires and cubic structures – the viewer is forced to consider just how much can go wrong. Deconstructing the processes of construction, re-construction and destruction all appear as recurring themes, often showcased side by side.
With Lopez’s Earth, Water, Fire and Air, her collaboration of four distinct themes work lovely together. Regardless of the dominant element at play, questions about movement and results are at the forefront of viewer’s mind. Anyone even mildly familiar with any sizable city can appreciate the fact that they’ve witnessed the presence of these elements and the roles they play within the environment. From the upward-gazing wondrous eyes of a child to the equally enthralled eyes of an adult, we’ve all experienced new buildings that rise up from the asphalt, disturbing construction zones and demolitions of abandoned unstable structures.
We’ve also witnessed the falling of the World Trade Center buildings, which is difficult to not see when the artist presents two rather symmetrical abstract skyscrapers burning next to one another. This imagery coupled with our knowledge that Ms. Lopez is a New York City artist leads us to believe that she too must see it, even if the result is unintended.
If one thing is for certain in the artist’s portrayal of urban life, it’s the uncertainty of it all.
Regardless of how you view the work of Nicola Lopez, it’s unlikely that anyone could considered them to be anything less than dramatic, if not exciting. She has most certainly etched her place in the contemporary art community. Her fantasy worlds bear no resemblance to, nor do they garner influence from, the Pop Art comic strips of Roy Lichtenstein or others who pay homage in retrospect. In fact, it’s apparent that Ms. Lopez is a bringing wholly new insights into many deep psychological truths about the far-fetched urban landscapes we so happen to inhabit right here on earth.
In just a bit more than a full decade, Nicola Lopez has received much acclaim and experienced tremendous success. In recent years, she has seized a number of opportunities to realize her art manifested in the form of installations, such as Landscape X : Under Construction, a 2011 installation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
At Vertu Fine Art, Nicola Lopez’s works represents a relatively small but growing number of younger artists who have earned the right to hang in our Boca Raton gallery − next to Pop, Optical and Abstract Expressionist masters like Andy Warhol, Willem De Kooning and Victor Vasarely. If you too are enthralled by the works of Nicola Lopez, stop in at VFA and have a look around. If you’re searching for a specific work from the artist, let us know and as always we’re happy to assist.
