ABOUT
Manuel López (b.1983, East Los Angeles CA) attended East Los Angeles College, transferred to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) where he earned his BFA in painting and drawing. He has been included in numerous group exhibitions in institutions and museums nationwide including Dark Progressivism; The Built Environment, at the Museum of Art and History, in Lancaster, CA; Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Friends Do Not Fear, at New Image Art, in West Hollywood, CA; Dia de los Muertos Exhibit at Self-Help Graphics, Boyle Heights, CA; Surface Place at Abrazo Interno Gallery at The Clemente, New York, NY; Spill at the Betty Rymer Gallery, Chicago, IL SAIC Undergrad Exhibition, at Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL. He lives and works in East Los Angeles.
López’s work is informed by his immediate surroundings. Each drawing is a careful examination of elements found around his environment: an old decrepit home, a hill with houses, crooked telephone poles, bent palm trees, tall cypresses, a sitter caught in mid-thought, the stillness in a yet continually shifting landscape, and the fleeting appearance of an everyday object forever caught on paper. López relies on interest, observation, memories, materiality, touch, and presence, in order to reach and evoke a feeling of familiarity.