ON VIEW: October 25 - November 30, 2024
OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, October 25 FROM 7-9 PM
Facade, 2013. Linoleum cut and monotype on laser-cut mylar
Artist Nicola Lopez
Highpoint is thrilled to be hosting the first major survey of the artist Nicola López’s (b. 1975) multifaceted career in print. Curated by William Morrow (Project-Based Independent Curator and Consultant), UNSETTLED HORIZONS: THE EXPANDED PRINTS OF NICOLA LÓPEZ, brings together twenty-five years of engagement with the medium. The exhibition aims to present the artist’s commitment to exploring the inherent and often overlooked intersection of our built environment and nature, reflecting the interconnectedness of our ever-present physical past with the future. Tracing her innovations in self-published work alongside her collaborations with some of the finest master printers and publishers of our time, UNSETTLED HORIZONS highlights López’s unfettered approach to pushing the limits of print. The exhibition includes over 50 editioned, unique prints, and installations, utilizing varied techniques of explosives, aquatint, collage, intaglio, lithography, linocut, silkscreen, and woodblock on an array of equally diverse substrates.
Drawing from international research and residencies around the globe, combined with formal studies in anthropology and fine art, López’s keen powers of observation and expertise in her craft bring to the forefront a world of envisioned possibilities. López suggests her work is often “exploring the way that human-built structures intersect with other systems of nature. Architecture becomes geology, and vice versa. Buildings grow like crystalline structures and eventually return to the earth. Buildings also take on animate qualities, becoming bodies as well as embodiments of social ideals, ambitions, fears, and failures.” Additionally, her work often addresses broader issues of displacement and hybridity, reflecting her life-long relationship with her native New Mexico and her experience as a transplant living in NYC for the last thirty years. López's use of mixed media and intricate detail adds depth to her exploration of these themes, inviting viewers to contemplate the relationship between humans, technology, and the natural world.
Independent Curator William Morrow
About the Curator: William Morrow is an independent curator, museum specialist, arts and culture consultant, and advisor to collectors based in Portland, Oregon. With over twenty years of experience curating high-level international art programs and expertise in building and interpreting major collections, he has become a highly effective thought partner to non-profit leaders and collectors across the country. His career-long commitment to fostering visionary artistic practices, deconstructing histories, and inspiring diverse audiences has been at the cornerstone of his curatorial practice.
William has organized and curated hundreds of exhibitions, scholarly publications, lectures, commissioned projects, films, dance, theater, music, and poetry programs that include some of the leading thinkers and creatives of our time. He recently curated the anchor exhibition for Portland, Oregon’s 2023 Converge 45 Biennial and inaugural public exhibition for the Schnitzer Collection Gallery, WE ARE THE REVOLUTION. In addition to curating the forthcoming survey, Unsettled Horizons: The Expanded Prints of Nicola López for the Highpoint Center for Printmaking, he is curating a major survey of the work of Ed Bereal for the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinatti (2025).
William was the founding Director of 21c Museum and Curator of the private collection of Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, Louisville, KY; Curator of Contemporary Art, Denver Art Museum; Curator Contemporary Art and Academic Affairs, Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University; Director of Exhibitions, Schnitzer Foundation and advisor to top 200 collector, Jordan Schnitzer, Portland, Oregon. William earned his master's degrees in art history and museum studies from the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and the Sainsbury Centre's School of World Art and Museum Studies at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England.