Peter Lopez
Peter Erik Lopez is a painter and former graduate of Transart Institute. He is a portrait artist whose portrait work led him further into an interest in personal narratives. This initiated an exploration of personal history by questioning the veracity of the family-album-as-archive and he produced work wherein he painted reconstituted images from his family albums, using symbols and disrupting the images in ways the trauma and inherited trauma eluded from the archive.
Peter Erik’s portrait work are large scale in-person portraits of prominent LGBTQ+ figures from cabaret artist, Joey Arias, to Broadway legend, André DeShields. His work also includes other members of the LGBTQ+ community. Through this portrait work, Peter Erik looks to build a community-on-canvas: a city of gay and trans people safe from the ongoing attacks from our society.
Current research interest:
Currently, I am interested in exploring, through figure painting, the prolific presence of crystal meth in the gay community. I am listening to stories of gay men who are on or have been addicted to meth and painting their portraits over a wet layer of pink while also inserting symbols relevant to their experiences on meth.