Each year, NCFH commissions an artist to create an original image for its commemorative artwork series. Talented, established artists from around the country have created vibrant oils to gentle watercolors, from exciting acrylics to soothing pastels. Sales of commemorative artwork fine art prints, posters, and notecards support the NCFH Scholarship program.
Raymundo Lopez (Ray Lopez) is a young visual artist and seasonal agricultural worker in Florida. He studied visual arts at the University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas (UNICACH), where he graduated in 2017. Both he and his family have actively contributed to the social transformation of Indigenous communities.
In his artistic work, elements referring to his own personal life and the life of his community are mixed with new intercultural interpretations that speak of a Mayan post-modernity. With his works, Ray gives testimony of a young idealistic creator who includes in his practice a record of the most important events of his town from Mexico and even the world. His previous works include “Los Juegos de la Vida” (The Games of Life), exhibition “Destino y Suerte” (Destiny and Luck) (2017).
What is common in his body of work, is that he opens the door for us to appreciate the cyclical time of the Mayan culture; and it demonstrates the potential of the art in the hands of the people, to recreate narrating their own history with their own symbology.
Raymundo is excited to share his most recent work, “El Ritual de la Milpa” (The Ritual of the Field) where the woman is presented as an authority figure at home, while the man of the household is away working abroad; in this case, migrating to another country for a better life and economic sustainability.
Ray states: “The indigenous world view goes beyond the reality, men and women perform rituals, invoking the divine owners of the mountains, the caves, the waters, and the sacred earth; they are asked to provide daily sustenance, peace, and happiness for the people. Incense also represents a type of uses and practices relevant to my hometown, as well as neighboring towns in my region; from which it is believed to help us purify and keep away illnesses, difficult times, and to ask for “good harvest times”. Every prayer made by a person in traditional charge, in this case the woman, invokes the lightning to protect the corn, beans, and squash from the damages that the wind and natural storms can cause.”