Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean Lopez.
Sean, before we jump into specific questions about your work, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I remember when I was a child I had to be separated from other students in class because I would act out. This was in 3rd grade, and I had these intense reactions and moments of acting out, typically tantrums – but sometimes these behaviors would take an affect that I still come back and think about in my adulthood. I remember standing up in class and telling other students as well as my teacher “we don’t have to be doing this, we don’t have to be here. This is all made up, we don’t have to be doing any of this”. This became too much of an occurrence to instruct the class orderly, so I had to be removed and put into a special education classroom, where I was handed my homework for the day and sat in the corner, sometimes the corner of the principal’s office. Left alone, doing work, every now and then I was allowed small visits with friends, but I was never allowed to be with other students in class. By 4th grade I had ‘learned’ how to ‘behave’ to join the rest of class. I always had an issue with institutions, behavior, and society. I always questioned the voices and figures that were informing and organizing us ‘humans’ our knowledge about ourselves and our existence here on this planet. I guess you could say I had some issues with self and other and having early existential moments… but I was only eight years old, so who knows.
At an early age, I immediately fell in love with theater and I thought this would be the thing I would end up doing my entire life. I loved the embodying of different personas, stories, and settings. From elementary school till up into my late teenage years I acted in numerous plays and productions. My whole life was acting, it was a way of fully exploring the self that my body was stuck with – a way to try on the myriad of masks that humans construct. Like all cool teenagers, there was some hardcore angst in my high school days, which led to me dropping out of competitions and out of auditions for colleges for performing arts. At this time, I was living in San Antonio, my hometown, and I had given up on acting and I dropped out of a community college. I grew my hair out long – you know what I mean – I ended up working contracting jobs with my friend and his father off and on for a year. It was in a moment when lying down pvc pipe that I told myself I should go back to college and study film. Film was my second big love. From an early age I loved making videos, short films, home spun movies. Movie making was like the same mask-wearing of the self I experienced with theater, but this time, the film image was a mask for all of space and sight, not just the interior of a character. I would work during the day and in my free time make short films, and eventually I was accepted into the University of Texas in Austin where I received my Bachelor of Science in Radio Television and Film (Communication). After graduating I worked on film crews, edited infomercials, did videography for weddings all the while making my own movies, and doing visuals for shows.
During that time, I read more than I ever had in my life, spent a few years working as a parking garage attendant and worked for two libraries – one public and one medical. I really fell in love with the dream-like storytelling that was found in books like James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and a 1001 Arabian Nights. Nothing ever stopped my love for the arts though and I was always committed to making artwork. I moved between Austin and Fort Worth with the attempt to try to save money. I had run out of money; I had a job that was not going anywhere and rent that was always rising. It is easy to be an artist in your twenties, it’s all free fusion fun excitement – but getting older and realizing that there’s still the system to live in, still money to make, and still the passion to express art – I had to take responsibility and ownership of my choices in life. If I was going to be an artist, I had to be prepared for the kind of life society provides for that occupation. I had never really found my career in conventional film making or theater, I was often too avant garde for the cinema, and too cinema for the avant garde. It was during this eight to nine year stretch that I really became invested in expanded cinema, video art, intermedia, and noise. I read as many books as I could on those subjects, and I began creating my own video installation shows out of friends’ houses and studios. I remember reading about artists like Mike Kelley, Joan Jonas and movements such as Fluxus and the London Filmmakers Co-Op.
While reading about these artists I finally had this ‘a-ha’ moment of – “this is the art I make, these are my kind of humans. this is me; I can do this too.’ I had found that my art practice could be a combination of all my loves – theater, cinema, and the visual arts. Two of my closest friends were in MFA programs at that time, and it just seemed like the right step for me as well. It was a hard path for me, I applied to schools for several years while piling on waitlists and rejection letters. Finally, though, I was accepted by the University of North Texas in 2018. Right now, I have been in a really fantastic moment in my life story. Being in a master’s program of fine arts has been one of my greatest privileges. I am finally in a community where I belong, I study art with a great community of other artists and I am in a place where I am pushed and motivated to achieve my goals. My next big plan is finding a gallery or space to put up my biggest intermedia performance yet for my MFA thesis show. It will be a combination of video, sound, performance, and installation work.
In wrapping up my story, I want to talk about what I found to be the most surprising and rewarding experiences in my life – teaching other students. I have had the benefit of teaching new media at UNT. Growing up I never felt that I would ever be able to be a part of society, I believed that I would never fit within any institution. In my classroom I make sure I provide students with the community I always wish I had when I was growing up – a place where we can all discover new techniques together, share with each other our thoughts about difficult subjects, and then transfer that into artwork we can be proud of. After graduation I am committed to continue producing video installation works that can be events for local communities. I want to tell stories, create actions, transport ourselves to new worlds – looking for those expressions that can shed light on that eternal human question of what we’re doing here on this planet.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I would not say that it has been a smooth road. One struggle I am quick to think of was the time I was not able to afford to live in Austin anymore. My job was paying me too little, and my rent was going up exponentially. I had to move into a room of a friend’s house who lived in Fort Worth. I left my partner at the time, all of my friends, and moved to a place where I knew no one so I could save money and continue to make art. Yet, with all hard times, those times always become the most character building, and beautifully romanticized. I think when my grandmother died when I was young that hurt a lot. She was like how you would imagine what a good human being to be like. If there is a heaven – she’s there – and I believe in heaven just for that reason.
Making video and performance art is always a challenge and a struggle, mainly because you know there’s not a lot of galleries and private owners seeking out that kind of work. They want to own an object, and preferably put it on a wall in their nice house. That is why I am always looking for the opportunity for making ‘events’. As a young kid it was tough being ‘different’, as an adult it is tough being ‘different’. I just think in a world where everyone is expected to produce and consume constantly is a struggle. Also, being a sensitive person – it’s tough sometimes being in this horror show we call life.
Please tell us about your work.
I am a multimedia artist and director of intermedia performances, videos, and installations. My artwork is influenced by dreams and the thin line that separates our subconscious from our waking life. I create drawings on movie screens, design studio stages and installations, perform plays and characters, utilize computer software and record endless video footage. Using poetry, and staged interactions with performers, my work explores the relationship between the myth of self and the contradictions of human interactions with the psyche, essence, and the landscape. My work will always search for the essential nature of character. What sets me apart from others is that I truly desire that stage of persona that can be a place of transition, initiation, voyage from the real to the imaginary – imaginary to real. I want my work to leave my audience with an abundance of images, words, sounds, and actions that they’re trying to reconstruct in their forgotten dreams of next morning. Most recent work was screened at the CAA Conference in New York City and at the 500x Gallery in Dallas, Texas. I am currently teaching new media and I am an MFA candidate in New Media at the University of North Texas.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Make every idea and never be afraid to do so. So many ideas of mine I have seen come to fruition by others years later. Do not hesitate. Make work. Embrace what makes you different instead of trying so hard to appear normal. I think that would have helped me earlier in life and I would have been less afraid to be happy with who I am. Other than that, I would not do too much differently. Add more yoga in my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.seanylopez.com
- Email: seanylopez@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/seanytv
- Other: www.vimeo.com/seanylopez
Image Credit:
Sean Lopez
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