About Angelo Lopez

I’ve wanted to be an artist all my life. Since I was a child I’ve drawn on any scrap of paper I could get a hold of. When I went to San Jose State University, I became more exposed to the works of the great fine artists and illustrators. My college paintings were heavily influenced by the humorous illustrations of Peter De Seve, an illustrator for the New Yorker magazine. I also fell under the spell of the great muralists of the 1930s, especially Thomas Hart Benton and Diego Rivera. I graduated with a degree in Illustration.

Since my time in college, I’ve illustrated 3 books: Two Moms the Zark and Me by Johnny Valentine in 1993; Night Travelers by Sue Hill in 1994; and Cherubic Children’s New Classic Story Book Volume 2 for Cherubic Press in 1998. I’ve painted murals for Lester Shields Elementary School in San Jose, the Berryessa branch of the San Jose Public Library, and Grace Community Church in Los Altos. I’ve had  illustrations published in South Bay Accent Magazine. Tikkun Magazine, the Palo Alto Daily News and in April 2008 my artwork was on the cover of Z Magazine. 

As of the April 9 issue, I have a continous cartoon that runs in the Tri-City Voice, a newspaper that covers news in the Milpitas, Fremont, Hayward, Newark, Sunol,  and Union City area in California.  These cartoons gave me the opportunity to join the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. To look at my political cartoons, you may go here.

I am a member of Gallery Saratoga, a co-op gallery in Saratoga, California. If you wish to look at my paintings and illustrations you can go to my Gallery Saratoga website here.

A quote by Thomas Hart Benton continues to inspire me. He wrote:

“I know there is no such thing as failure in the pursuit of art. Merely to survive in that pursuit is a success. Pictures may fail to please, movements may fail to survive, but the artist has his rewards anyway. He may lose his public and his market and still get full compensation for his efforts. Quite apart from the public values of art – those which give it significance in the social history of a people – the act of artistic creation has its own psychological payoff and a very considerable one. The rewards of art, for the artist himself, are concomitants of its practice. The only way an artist can personally fail is to quit work.”