Yolanda Lopez (b.1942 – 2021; she), a Mexican American painter whose artwork and activism during the Chicano Movement, continues to be studied by generations throughout institutions and contemporary Latinx/o artists. Yolanda was raised in Barrio Logan, San Diego, and pursued higher education in the Bay Area where she witnessed an echo of systemic oppression. The Chicana feminist found her community and her voice in her own art as well, including her role in being a founding member of Los Siete de la Raza. Lopez produced her most well-known works during her activism and MFA program at UC San Diego. Her life’s work consists of Chicanx/o imagery that ignited conversations of social-justice for the BIPOC community and her countless leadership in educational programs para la raza.
The time in which she created her work played a major role in the effectiveness of not only her paintings, but also the future Chicanx/os/as who would see the value in placing themselves in their own work.
Writer’s Commentary
During a 2020 interview from UC Santa Barbara, Las Maestras Center, the artist was asked about her Guadalupe Series and the backlash she received when it was first viewed by the public, she stated that, “The content is mas o menos the same, but the context changes and the interpretation of that is something that as an artist, who knows what would be seen today”.
Yolanda Lopez observes the importance of what was going on in the world when she first exhibited her works, the backlash she faced from la raza for her “blasphemous” art, in comparison to how la raza sees her work in modern day as “feminist-cultural” art.
The time in which she created her work played a major role in the effectiveness of not only her paintings, but also the future Chicanx/os/as who would see the value in placing themselves in their own work. In turn, the technology artists have at their fingertips allows BIPOC representation to bloom within an artist’s practice. We now are able to see more commonly our own people being the subjects of works that are in galleries and museums because artists like Lopez took that leap.
Arguably, photography as an art form is more literal, whereas painting allows room for a fabricated and playful reality. Lopez’s Tableaux Vivant (1978), a collection of photographs in which the artist places herself in place of the well-known Virgen de Guadalupe, but dressed in her normal studio attire. These photographs are what comes to mind first when Chicano Art comes to mind. We are able to see Yolanda’s bright smile and her eyes gleam with joy, much like in her self portrait, Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe (1978).
Yolanda Lopez, is remembered as an integral part of the Latinx/o and Chicanx/o programs across California and truly left a legacy with her actions, on and off the canvas for many.
If you would like to see more of Lopez’s work, please check out the many different online publications.
For SoCal residents: you can experience a more intimate retrospective on Lopez’s practice at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, located in Riverside, CA (@thecheechcenter) currently on view until January 26th, 2025.
Latinx Arts 