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anna-marie lopez de leon Biography
Surfacing from a violent series of suicide attempts and hospitalizations,
the result of crippling depression, Anna-Marie Lopez de Leon turned her
ravaged life around and began painting in her early twenties when she
became inspired by an older established artist who took the young Lopez
de Leon in, seeing her raw talent, mentoring and teaching her, teaching
the artists craft and encouraging her to consider painting as a career. The
turbulent relationship both inspired and crushed Lopez de Leon, a
dichotomy in life she continues to incorporate in her sometimes blunt, raw
and achingly disturbing portraits and dreamscapes.
Rendered in contrasting bright plumes of colour and hard dark lines,
Lopez de Leon's work is at once a mirage of emotions vying for attention
and the heartache of her abuse opening its richly decorated palm and
bleeding onto canvas. While living in NYC Lopez de Leon worked by day in
art stores learning her craft and honing her distinctive masculine style
incorporating muted dark images with bright bursts of light and edgy
distorted figures captured in unguarded moments. By night she juggled
the fickle music world where she managed several rock bands, exposing
her to the underbelly of big city life and intoxicating her enthusiasm for
passionate expression and the unheard voices of the city that profoundly
affected the young Texan with their bloody life dramas.
Coming from the staid confines of Texas, Lopez de Leon longed for
acceptance, and peace from her inner-turmoil. Her work reflects this
longing, and a gradual realization that she could not avoid her demons but
can depict them in the hollow-faces, splayed and flayed limbs of her
starving images, picking grit from their steaming guts and living through a
web of suffering much as the artist has succeeded in doing.
Coming from her native Texas to New York expanded Lopez de Leon's
circle of influence and allowed her to develop a style of her own, away from
the limited circles of a-typical Hispanic art to include her unapologetic
perspectives of mental health and torment. Continually battling suicidal
urges, the flirtations of manic episodes and the fiery holes of depression,
Lopez de Leon's life has been one of contrast and pain interspersed with
prolonged periods of extreme creativity and output. In Lopez's recent work,
her maturing perspective treats us to a realm of darkness and light, denial
and exposure, religious fervour and pain and pleasure.
Less afraid, less tongue-tied and shy, Lopez de Leon's expression
demands attention and is at once, artfully repulsive, beautiful and
shocking. Her life spent covering her scars, assisting struggling artists
and observing American culture on the streets of New York has
constructed a universe of sensitive voyeurism, genderless anger and a
cocktail of highs and lows, that weave like a late night song into the
psyche, reminding us, if we are an artist, we have no choice but to expose
our lives, twitching on the vivisection table, over-and-over again until the
climaxing ache inside is assuaged. Lopez de Leon's influences often
oblique and risque, range from her Sephardic heritage, her lesbianism
and the prejudices this has wrought in her Latino culture where
lesbianism is still an unspoken 'sin,' her travels in the media industry and
most importantly, her God and love of Christianity in a distinct and pure
form that often butts heads with organized (and exclusionary) religion.
Lopez de Leon's Latino roots are explored through her homage to the artist
Alice Neel, Konstantine Bokov, Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo, inspired by but
not mimicking their flair for the extraordinary and the flamboyant, imbued
with a quiet terror, Lopez de Leon sees pieces of her own conflict in such
artists lives and those street artists she was exposed to in New York.
Now with her own studio, a body of work behind her, and her redheaded
muse at her side, Lopez de Leon finds time for contemplation and
self-examination that lends her painting a greater breadth and sense of
history and location pouring darkness out into a cup light enough for
reflection. Finding love later in life has breathed renewed energy into Lopez
de Leon's desire to leave imprints of her experiences, now finding
inspiration in not only the aftermath of suffering and battle with depression,
but the smiling irony of deepest love.
the result of crippling depression, Anna-Marie Lopez de Leon turned her
ravaged life around and began painting in her early twenties when she
became inspired by an older established artist who took the young Lopez
de Leon in, seeing her raw talent, mentoring and teaching her, teaching
the artists craft and encouraging her to consider painting as a career. The
turbulent relationship both inspired and crushed Lopez de Leon, a
dichotomy in life she continues to incorporate in her sometimes blunt, raw
and achingly disturbing portraits and dreamscapes.
Rendered in contrasting bright plumes of colour and hard dark lines,
Lopez de Leon's work is at once a mirage of emotions vying for attention
and the heartache of her abuse opening its richly decorated palm and
bleeding onto canvas. While living in NYC Lopez de Leon worked by day in
art stores learning her craft and honing her distinctive masculine style
incorporating muted dark images with bright bursts of light and edgy
distorted figures captured in unguarded moments. By night she juggled
the fickle music world where she managed several rock bands, exposing
her to the underbelly of big city life and intoxicating her enthusiasm for
passionate expression and the unheard voices of the city that profoundly
affected the young Texan with their bloody life dramas.
Coming from the staid confines of Texas, Lopez de Leon longed for
acceptance, and peace from her inner-turmoil. Her work reflects this
longing, and a gradual realization that she could not avoid her demons but
can depict them in the hollow-faces, splayed and flayed limbs of her
starving images, picking grit from their steaming guts and living through a
web of suffering much as the artist has succeeded in doing.
Coming from her native Texas to New York expanded Lopez de Leon's
circle of influence and allowed her to develop a style of her own, away from
the limited circles of a-typical Hispanic art to include her unapologetic
perspectives of mental health and torment. Continually battling suicidal
urges, the flirtations of manic episodes and the fiery holes of depression,
Lopez de Leon's life has been one of contrast and pain interspersed with
prolonged periods of extreme creativity and output. In Lopez's recent work,
her maturing perspective treats us to a realm of darkness and light, denial
and exposure, religious fervour and pain and pleasure.
Less afraid, less tongue-tied and shy, Lopez de Leon's expression
demands attention and is at once, artfully repulsive, beautiful and
shocking. Her life spent covering her scars, assisting struggling artists
and observing American culture on the streets of New York has
constructed a universe of sensitive voyeurism, genderless anger and a
cocktail of highs and lows, that weave like a late night song into the
psyche, reminding us, if we are an artist, we have no choice but to expose
our lives, twitching on the vivisection table, over-and-over again until the
climaxing ache inside is assuaged. Lopez de Leon's influences often
oblique and risque, range from her Sephardic heritage, her lesbianism
and the prejudices this has wrought in her Latino culture where
lesbianism is still an unspoken 'sin,' her travels in the media industry and
most importantly, her God and love of Christianity in a distinct and pure
form that often butts heads with organized (and exclusionary) religion.
Lopez de Leon's Latino roots are explored through her homage to the artist
Alice Neel, Konstantine Bokov, Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo, inspired by but
not mimicking their flair for the extraordinary and the flamboyant, imbued
with a quiet terror, Lopez de Leon sees pieces of her own conflict in such
artists lives and those street artists she was exposed to in New York.
Now with her own studio, a body of work behind her, and her redheaded
muse at her side, Lopez de Leon finds time for contemplation and
self-examination that lends her painting a greater breadth and sense of
history and location pouring darkness out into a cup light enough for
reflection. Finding love later in life has breathed renewed energy into Lopez
de Leon's desire to leave imprints of her experiences, now finding
inspiration in not only the aftermath of suffering and battle with depression,
but the smiling irony of deepest love.
