Flavio Lopez Lopez

Flavio López López (Anxel) was born in San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, in 1996. He belongs to the Mayan Tsotsil ethnic group. He has a degree in Visual Arts from the University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas (UNICACH). He is a workshop leader, cultural promoter and a multidisciplinary artist through easel painting, muralism, illustration and music. In Anxel's works he shows us his own imaginary, which through figurative painting creates an allegorical visual discourse of the Tsotsil Mayan worldview, inviting us to reflect on our past and present. Throughout his career he has had more than 25 group exhibitions and 3 individual exhibitions, both national and local. His latest exhibitions are: “The Artist's Mother,” a group exhibition held at the Exconvento Santo Domingo Cultural Center in Chiapa de Corzo, 2023; “Retrospective of color” Maya – Zoque collective exhibition, held at the Jaime Sabines Cultural Center of Chiapas, 2023. In mural painting he has collaborated with various collective and individual projects, in different spaces inside and outside the state of Chiapas. And he is part of the catalog of artists “Faces of Mayan-Zoque art of Chiapas”. In 2023 he was the recipient of two awards, “2023 State Youth Award in the Artistic Expressions and Popular Arts distinction” and “2023 Chiapaneca Plastic Arts Salon Acquisition Award, in the discipline of painting.”

Title of Work: Echoes of identity

Description of Work: The pictorial work shows us the contrasts of the cultural diversity of Chiapas. Each region is unique, but we all share the same mother earth. From this perspective, my proposal develops with a concept that refers to the fundamental elements of life as unifying forces: fire, earth, water, and wind. Thus, the pictorial language takes shape allegorically and invites us to see Chiapas from the Maya Tsotsil worldview.

On the front part of the head, it is divided into two levels. In the lower composition, there are two women, weavers of life, who protect and preserve wisdom, tasked with giving life to the great ceiba, the sacred tree that connects us with divinity, where macaws fly and converse with the wind. On the back, there is an allusion to water, featuring the Sumidero Canyon, a symbol of identity for the state of Chiapas. In the sky, the great jaguar emerges, protector of the jungle and the spiritual world of the communities. In this same scene, a ritual journey is offered through the representation of a ballplayer, reminding us of the glorious times of the native peoples.

On the left side of the head, there is a scene of a couple of dancers, the parachicos and chiapanecas, part of the traditional festival of the municipality of Chiapa de Corzo, with a backdrop of coffee plantations, as Chiapas is one of the states where the population depends on coffee production. On the right side of the head, there is a pottery woman from the municipality of Amatenango del Valle, a town with a creative bond with clay. Pottery is an activity that integrates the sacred elements of fire, water, and wind, reflecting on the interconnectedness of all with mother earth.