In honoring Arthur López with a 2022 New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the state’s department of cultural affairs states simply that he is “a contemporary wood santero sculptor whose work pushes the boundaries of traditional santero art.”
His process of carving and painting his sculptures is one that has been in use in New Mexico since the 1700s. He often makes his own pigments—brown, for instance, from black walnut hulls and red from the cochineal insect that lives in nopal cactus.
Arthur López with several of his carvings.
From there, as an artist in the 21st century, he departs from tradition with his unique interpretation and retelling of the stories of saints often with wit and humor, but always with devotion and feeling.
St. Francis y Los Pajaros, wood, traditional paints
Responding to the often gory sculptures he saw in church as a boy, he began to see them as artistic expressions, commenting: “My work comes out of my faith, I am a firm believer that you can still use traditional methods to create contemporary work. Though the majority of my work is of saints, you do not have to be of any particular religion to appreciate them as art.”
Saint Inez del Campo, wood, traditional paints
Saint Francis, the patron saint of Santa Fe and New Mexico as well as of birds and other animals, is depicted in St. Francis y Los Pajaros with a magpie and a jay on his shoulders. Saint Inez del Campo, the Roman virgin martyr St. Agnes, is translocated to the American Southwest holding a lamb, referring to her Latin name (Agnes being similar to “agnus” the Latin word for “lamb”) with the lamb’s parents close by.
Kindred: The Spirit Within, an exhibition of his latest work, will be shown at King Galleries in Santa Fe, July 28 through August 6. —
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