Norma Esperanza Lopez, was born in Bucaramanga, Colombia where she started an art student at a very early age. She continued her education in Minnesota University pursuing her degree in Astronomy and simultaneously continuing her artistic education. After Minneapolis, Norma Esperanza started a world wide pilgrimage looking for artistic knowledge, studying and assisting to workshops all over the world; Italy, France, New York City, Texas, Colombia to finally settle down in Boston where she graduated at the School of the Museum of Fine Art. She has shown her work internationally and locally, New York City, Miami, Spain, all around Massachusetts and Boston.
She represented Colombia at the White House because her artistic work in social.
Artist Statement
Spanish:
Mi pintura es un la materializacion de emociones latentes. Que fluyen a torrentes o se resbalan suavemente en la superficie de una tela o un papel. Es ahi donde la tecnica, el color y la material pictorica me permiten dar cuerpo a la escencia de mi emocion.
English:
My work is the embodiment of latent emotions that strappingly run or softly slide on the surface of a canvas or a paper. It is there where color, technique and the pictorial matter allow me to give a tangible body to the essence of my emotion.
Short curatorial paragraph:
Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library will present a solo show of the Colombian artist Norma Esperanza Lopez, whose work examines the possibility of giving a physical documentation of movement. Lopez paintings exist in permanent transit. Like a never finished script, the gesture, the physical evidence of her body in the generation of the two-dimensional pieces, reminds us of the relevance of the process of paintings and the space that exist in between the body of the artist and the attacked surfaces. Her pain are the only witnesses left at the end of the day to define her notion of self and put together the pieces of a day to day life.
She refers to her practice; “When I am painting I am constantly thinking that my work is the only thing that will survive me. I think that all of whatI was never able to verbalized, will be transcend my physical existence materializing in the body of my paintingings.” We can all connect to this fragmented and anxious vision of our existence. The impossibility of giving an account of a our history in a material way drives Lopez’ work. Norma documents the movements of her body on
the surface of her pieces, giving to the paintings the strength of life, but of a life aware of its transition condition.
The subject of my art has a tendency towards humanity’s struggle and its being. For this both observation and imagination are important in my creative process, but neither is of any use to me without inspiration. These three actions, I find, are delicately intertwined and dependent on each other: they spawn one another, they sustain one another, and at times they destroy one another.
A few years ago, I heard on my radio the announcement of a terrible accident in New York City. Then later, as I watched events unfold live on television I was stunned and speechless as I witnessed the glimpse of horror on people’s faces, the selflessness of the rescue personnel, and the devastation that ensued. I felt overwhelmed and after sometime to understand what had happened, I turned to my art if nothing more than for my own catharsis.
The subsequent piece I created is rich in colors to convey feelings and actions. In the background there are dark colors such as blacks and purples representing chaos and death and in the foreground there are lighter colors such as yellows and greens representing strength, resolve, and hope. And in between the dark and the light colors sits a large red apple with an American flag as its stem symbolizing the city of New York. In the piece it is easy to determine the source of the inspiration, based on observation of events through mass media, which led to its creation. But, it is the imagination of how things are represented that makes this, and any other piece of art, unique and intimate which, it is my hope, may lead the observer or observers of my work inspired or thinking.
The essence of my work is inspired by the human spirit: its simplicity, it complexity, and its ubiquity. The great variety that can be derived from the three basic primary colors parallels the variety found in the human spirit. This allows me to express the subtleties, the rawness, and the honesty that defines who and what we are as human beings.
Norma E. Lopez