Kiko Lopez

This mirror is part of a series of pieces that emerge from many simultaneous ideas which have for some time mingled together in the artist’s mind “the way that symbols or characters in a dream have multiple, unrelated meanings.”

On the island of Vieques, close to where Lopez is originally from, is a silk cotton tree that has always intrigued him, both for its age (it’s at least a thousand years old), and its amazing thorns—big, asymmetrical, and prehistoric.

Attaching “thorns” onto his work from the outside, he found that they reflect and extend inside, accessing the empty space beneath the surface, that the soft and permeable skin of the mirror’s surface is exaggerated by the trembling “watery” surface of the glass beneath. 

Like Fontana’s Concepto espacial series, these pieces seek to release the space beneath the surface, or discover it, like Alice does fin the Lewis Carroll novel Through the Looking-Glass.

“When the mirror is upright and vertical, a different dimension becomes apparent. In spiritual and religious imagery, enlightenment is often depicted as radiant lines emanating from a source. I like to think of these works radiating beauty, energy and mystery.”