Show Preview | Arthur López

Arthur López spent much of his childhood in New Mexico painting and drawing. When he graduated high school he started down the path of fine art, but decided to switch his focus to graphic design because there were more job opportunities. He enrolled in a college in Tempe, Arizona, and after graduation had a successful career in the field working in Santa Fe and Los Angeles.

“From Los Angeles I got a job offer that would take me to New York City, as they had asked if I’d handle the catalog for Macy’s by Mail,” recalls López. Before the move, he visited his family in Santa Fe for about two weeks and while he was there his father was diagnosed with cancer. The trajectory of López’s life changed as he turned down the position to be closer to his loved ones. Three months later his father passed away. During that time, he also met his now wife, Bernadette, and there was a calling to fine art again.

“I wanted to paint and draw again,” he says. “I went to Spanish Market—it’s a traditional market that happens the last full weekend of July every year in Santa Fe—to learn to paint saints on wood, called retablos. During that visit to Spanish Market, I saw bultos and thought I could do that. Bernadette and I then went up to Hyde Park and I found a piece of downed wood and I decided to carve a piece. It made so much more sense than a two-dimensional painting. After that I was hooked.”

Not long after, López’s work was juried into Spanish Market and was being represented by galleries. He’s been a full-time santero ever since, working with traditional methods like grinding his own pigments and making his own gesso. However, what sets his work apart from other iconographic carvers, is the contemporary storytelling that connects with a larger audience.

On July 28, during Santa Fe’s famed Spanish Market weekend, López will open his solo exhibition Kindred: The Spirit Within at King Galleries located at 130 Lincoln Avenue in the city. According to the press release, the show, on view through August 6, “captures the harmony of the animal spirit by focusing on the relationship between animal and spirit and highlighting the animal as the main subject of the story.” It’s apropos when knowing that the patron saint of Santa Fe is St. Francis, who is best known as the patron saint of animals and was said to be able to communicate with them.

López explains that every saint has their own story and symbolism, and his modern take focuses on a reinterpretation for today’s world. It also allows people from all backgrounds to find an entry point into a medium with religious history. For example, in the work DAVID & GOLIATH, as he says, “A fox is getting ready to pounce into a mouse hole. The fox is Goliath, and the mouse is David. The little mouse has outwitted the fox because he’s popping out of the wood in a different area. It’s highlighting the animals and telling the story through the animals.”

In another, VICENTE, López tells the story of St. Vincent who is the patron saint of wine growers. “Part of his story was that he was tortured in a wine press, and the wine was his blood,” says the artist. “As his body was thrown into a pit after being martyred, the raven protected his bones or body. For VICENTE I have a raven at the top and the grapes are growing all around.”

Depicted in PEDRO’S MORNING PRAYERS is a contemporary showing of St. Peter who was the holder of keys to the gates of heaven. In the work, as the artist shares, you see a carving of Peter coming out of a window to do his morning prayers as a rooster calls above.

“I think one of the main things I tell people is that just because it’s religious undertone, you don’t have to be religious to collect it as art,” says López. “You can still appreciate the artwork. People have a connection to the stories.”

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