Pola Lopez (1954-present) is a painter and muralist known for her abstract, southwestern-inspired artworks that sit on the line between “magical realism” and “pragmatic idealism”.
Biography
Pola Lopez was born on April 7,1954 in Las Vegas, New Mexico, located in the county of San Miguel. Lopez had not really been taught the standards of art throughout her early life, but instead was inspired to learn on her own. During the Chicano Movement, the Brown Berets sprouted and began to manifest feminism in Chicana women, one of them being Pola Lopez in high school. Lopez admired the Brown Berets painting a mural at her school, decided to take part in it, and became inspired to learn to paint in her own perspective, inspired by the Southwest.
Lopez omitted attending college, although she had applied to New Mexico Highlands University. Her father, Junio Lopez, was a businessman who accepted her choice, so long as she could run her own small business in a small building he loaned to her. Successfully doing so by selling art supplies, Lopez continued her journey as an artist, learning different mediums of art through a sale representative, and eventually displaying her own work in front of her store. When displaying her work, a couple of artists from a well-known collective by Luis Tapia, La Cofradia de Artes y Artistas Hispanos, noticed her work and invited her to join their collective in Santa Fe.
Since then, she moved to Highland Park in Los Angeles where she held a public studio space between 2009 and 2016. Some key highlights of career since have been to be honored as the first female featured artist in the Santa Fe Springs Artfest of California in 2017, be appointed a lead artist in the same year of the Daniel Cervantes mural restoration project (located at the Southwest Museum in Highland Park), and designed 7 banners for La Casa of USC to be used in Latinx Heritage Month in 2019.
Art (or Notable Works or Selected Works. Also Exhibitions, Projects, Collections)
• La Chola y Coalticue (2018)
Made in 2018, acrylic on canvas. This painting features the stereotypical “chola,” leaning against a statue of Coatlicue. This exhibits the feminist style of chola women who remain connected to the roots they emerged from.
• Who Wins This Game? (1991)
Made in 1991, acrylic on canvas with mixed media. Represents different identities, beneath a tic tac toe game, as if to represent which identity best suits the artist.
• USC Latinx Heritage Month Banners (2019)
Designed in 2019, 7 designs, acrylic on canvas. Featured heritage and background of USC La Casa Latinx students. Designed for main pathway of USC Campus, Trousdale Parkway, to be displayed for Latino Heritage Month (Sept 15-Oct 15).
References
1. Garcia, Saul. “Latinx Heritage Month Banners Celebrate the Stories of USC Students.” USC News, 2 June 2020, https://news.usc.edu/161162/latinx-heritage-month-banners-la-casa-usc-students/.
2. “Back Matter.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, vol. 18, no. 3, University of Nebraska Press, 1997, pp. 161–65, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3347190.
3. Contreras, Russell. “Exhibit on US Latina 'Cholas' Opens in Albuquerque.” The Washington Times, The Washington Times, 8 Mar. 2019, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/8/exhibit-on-us-latina-cholas-set-to-open-in-new-mex/.
External links
• Pola Lopez - polalopez.com
• Rascon, Michael. “La López Returns: Famed Chicana Painter Póla López Is Back for Qué Chola Exhibit.” Alibi, 7 Mar. 2019, https://alibi.com/art/58063/La-Lopez-Returns.html.
• Southwest Contemporary - https://southwestcontemporary.com/que-chola/
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