Israel Francisco Haros Lopez - Pintor, Poesia, y Cultura

Israel Francisco Haros Lopez is both a visual artist and performance artist; born and raised in East Los Angeles, and graduated from Roosevelt High School with a 1.59 G.P.A. He is a graduate of Laney and Vista Community College with an Associate in Arts degree in English Literature. 

He survived UC Berkeley with a degree in English and Xikan@ Studies and received an M.F.A. from California College of the Arts. His work is an attempt to search for personal truths and personal histories inside of American cosmology.

 He draws upon North and South American cosmology, a cosmology existing before Columbus. His writing and his painting and mark historical points in the Americas and the world. His work attempts to speak to the undeniable presence of a native America that will continue to flourish for generations to come.

Lopez' work is rooted in the importance of honoring and remembering ancestral ways of living; as a means of maintaining healthy relations with all humans - the winged, all those that crawl on this Earth, all Life, the Water, the Sacred Fire, Tonanztin, Tonatiuh,the Sacred Cardinal Points, everything in between, above and below, and at the center of self and all things in the universe.

Currently, the visual motifs are drawn from a pre-Columbian America with far, far, less physical, mental or spiritual borders. He also draws inspiration from the contemporary styles of inner city youth who use public space as their method of artistic expression. 

Israel also draws much of his inspiration from his peers and contemporaries who constantly show him innovative ways to approach cultural and political dilemmas. The written words cannot be without the painted image.

The painted image cannot be without words. Neither the written work or visual work can exist without sound, without vibration, as all things on this earth carry a vibration. As such, Lopez' written and oral work is constantly shifting as it is performed or recorded The same poem, story, monologue or abstract diatribe shifts within the space it is performed taking into consideration audience and the theatrics and vibration of the moment.

CHICANO COLORING BOOKS

Luna Codex is a contemporary Chicano codex reflecting on the ancestral relationship with the moon. The imagery is designed to inspire both children and adults to create their own ancestral glyphs through coloring and re-membering. This codex is part of a series of 1,000 images designed to awaken and re-connect the viewer to their roots to the moon, the sun, the earth and all the natural elements.

The Thirteenth Stone Codex is  a black and white contemporary Maya/Aztec Chicano codex. Predominantly circular images designed to help the viewer re-member and re-construct their own ancestral truths.