Natalia Lopez

Natalia Lopez was born in 1960, she lives and works in Paris (FR)

“Literally, I see only thick black strokes—those that lift the letter and those that stretch at its base to facilitate reading. The closer I look, the more enormous this character becomes, one I merely contemplate from the vast white ground. I avoid looking at the other characters that fade into the horizon of the page: I am not yet ready to reveal the meaning.

But contemplating these monumental letters is only a starting point. One must travel across them, let oneself be carried, bounce along their curves, and while gathering momentum, project from one letter to the next until the word is recomposed.

In the background of these black strokes on the vast white surface, meaning detaches and follows the word like its shadow. This word signals something beyond itself; it is like an arrow on whose back we take a swift journey, yet we can still distinguish landscapes. The shadow of the word grazes the surfaces of the landscapes, redrawing them.

The word and its shadow carry within them the thing they represent. Tacitly. And the edges of the strokes that draw the word, those that define the border of the shadow, and then those of the object itself—these limits are tiny interstices that connect word, shadow, and object. Like straight slits that can be made flexible, deepened, widened. Then, when there is space, they can also be distorted, made immense. Disguised, ridiculed, filled with whatever comes to hand. Or wedged to prevent the word from falling back into its commonplace place. To set a trap for it.”**

— Natalia Lopez