Exhibition Information
Artist: Kelvin Lopez
Exhibition: Scry Baby
Media: Printmaking/ Crystals
Gallery: CSULB School of Art, Dr. Maxine Merlino Gallery
Website: http://www.facebook.com/klart760
Instagram: @klart760
About the Artist
Kelvin Lopez is earning his undergraduate degree at Cal State Long Beach. He is in the School of Art’s Printmaking program and is earning his degree toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA). He is from San Diego, California and hopes to attend graduate school after earning his BFA. A lot of his work at the gallery was printed inside the geometric shapes of his crystals. He mentioned that he became interested in crystals after one of his former girlfriends introduced him to them and he slowly started collecting them afterward. He has even received some from friends and a professor. Some of his interests included listening to music, going to bars to drink beer, and going to watch shows.
Formal Analysis
Kelvin’s art included many elements of the geometric shapes of his crystals. All of the crystals that were displayed at the center of the gallery were represented in his printed pieces of art that were on the walls. His printed art included several pictures of himself within these crystal shapes. The pictures of himself looked like they were taken in the present day and there were a few that were of him as a toddler. There was another one of a child on display but he explained that it was his nephew. The images were printed on paper and it looked like if water color was used around the printed images. Some of the pieces of art had a black and white or unsaturated color that were used to create the images and the use of brighter color came into play with the water color. It added a sort of splash of color to his art.
Content Analysis
The art was mostly about himself. Kelvin stated that he likes to make his art personal. This is part of the reason why his art included pictures of himself. He likes to explore his life and his past in his art. He also spoke about how when he first became interested in art he felt that he wasn’t good at it. He thought his art didn’t look good which further motivated him to become better. This motivated him even more to pursue art and become better at it. This how he discovered he was really good at print making, which he explained involves more precision.
Synthesis/ My Experience
I definitely interpreted Kelvin’s art as being about him. I thought it was very personal especially since he included pictures of himself as a child as well as of his nephew. I usually think of childhood pictures as something I would want to hide from the world or keep secret from the public and only show someone like a close friend or significant other. I also appreciated the fact that his art is made through printmaking because I had never thought of this as art. I think that I’ve been socialized into thinking that painting and sculptures are the mainstream forms of art. I think its quite enlightening learning about new mediums and forms of art that I am not used to seeing. I think that my interpretation of his art is pretty inline with what he wants his audience to know about him because we get an idea of what the artist looks like, a bit of his personality is embedded in each piece. Even his crystals are part of him even though he didn’t necessarily create them, we can know as an audience that he has an interest or some sort of relationship with them.