It's a bit morbid, perhaps, but among Daniel Lopez's deepest fears is dying with an unfinished painting still on his easel.
Although his work is widely recognized throughout Spokane in the form of dozens of murals — like his pixelated "American Jesus" in downtown Spokane and a recent installation at Gonzaga University — Lopez is still in the early stages of establishing himself in the fine art realm with his masterful oil paintings.
Sitting in the living room of his third-floor apartment in the Garland District, Lopez is surrounded by this new-to-him oeuvre. Each canvas is freshly varnished, custom framed and ready for its public debut in his upcoming solo art show, "World War Me." About 20 paintings Lopez has completed within the past two years are being displayed through June in the circular, mezzanine gallery of Entropy, a newish vinyl and vintage decor shop on the ground floor of Spokane's iconic Parkade parking structure.
"One of my greatest fears is I'll be working on some masterpiece and die, and then it'll never be complete," Lopez says with a laugh as he stands in front of a work-in-progress perched on a wooden easel in his modest home studio.
"I know they keep those [unfinished] paintings from those artists," Lopez continues, referring to the many Baroque and Renaissance masters who've inspired him. "But I'm still like, 'Please, oh no, please don't let me die before I finish this.' It's weird, but yeah."
The painting in front of him depicts two heavily tattooed men facing each other, their foreheads pressed together and their right hand behind each other's necks. While they appear to be embracing each other in an act of brotherly love, each man holds a knife in their left hand. A stain of blood seeps through the shirt of one, and knife sheath protrudes from the side of the other.
Though it appears nearly finished to an undiscerning eye, Lopez explains that this is just the underpainting, or base layer, before more fine details are added. While this painting probably won't be ready for his June show, the subject matter encapsulates the deeply personal themes of his art slated for exhibition.
"There is an intimacy here, and a trust," he says of this particular piece. "A friend, even if they hurt you, they will tell you the truth. I think when people see [my] paintings, they might not hear the whole story, but it's got enough information where, hopefully, they can connect with the imagery."
His fear is not for nothing. The 40-year-old Lopez has been close to death before. Three times, to be exact, while living on the streets of L.A. as a heroin addict, he overdosed and survived.
Today, almost 10 years clean, he's candid about his troubled past, and how finding art — and God — has helped him heal and process that trauma while continuing to navigate being estranged from his still-living family members in Southern California.
"The evolution of my painting was when I started to ask myself who I was, which is kind of where this show is heading," Lopez says.
"My mother was an addict, and my father was an addict and a gang member, so my grandmother adopted and raised me," he continues. "One thing I think my art has helped me do is to connect and build a family through my supporters, and to find my culture. It's helped me share where I came from, Southern California and the Hispanic side. And there is a lot of beauty and passion in that culture along with the bad stigmas, too. So I've used my art to reminisce about those things when I was growing up, but also to help me process."
Lopez's most personal piece — and the technical pinnacle of his self-taught oil painting progress so far — is a 3-by-4-foot piece titled "Pietà." A mother seated on the end of a worn sofa cradles the head of her son, his eyes closed and one arm hanging limply toward the floor. Just below a shoestring tourniquet, a syringe dangles from his inner elbow.
"Pietà" contrasts a deeply painful moment — a mother's pain and longing to help her child — with the exquisite beauty Lopez captures in every detail, from the soft folds of the mother's woven shroud to the tense tendons of her bare feet and the peaceful expression on her son's face.
"The good moments are easy to connect to, but when it comes to the tougher moments, I don't always feel like I want to call my friends and tell them about it and have them do a therapy session," Lopez says. "I've learned to embrace it and work through it, as painful as it is, and turn it into something positive, which is my paintings."
Other pieces of his are less loaded, showcasing the many facets of his Chicano culture. In "Ella," a woman with her shining brunette hair rolled into a pompadour style adorned with ruby-red roses basks in the California sun. Lopez has also painted a few stoic self-portraits.
While his subjects range from triumphant to heartrending, Lopez's art is characterized by muted palettes using variations of pigments that have been around for centuries. He elegantly balances light and shadow, and his human subjects present a softness of skin and facial features reminiscent of the Old Masters who inspire him: Raphael, Michelangelo, da Vinci and their contemporaries.
Transitioning from using unwieldy cans of spray paint on the exponentially larger canvas of a mural to the tiniest paintbrushes on archival-quality linen canvases was "madness," Lopez says.
"It was really a struggle, because I felt like I had to separate those two," he says of the distinct styles he's developed for each medium. "The oil paintings helped me slow down, because if you ever see me paint a mural, I fly through those things."
It's been five years now since Lopez climbed atop a scissor lift and spray painted his way across the brick facade of a historic downtown Spokane building to create one of his most talked-about pieces of art, "American Jesus."
Mural work is still what allows him to make a living as a professional artist, including recent commissions from Gonzaga University, where he left his mark inside its Hemmingson Center with his "Unity" mural, and at a new Spokane Valley ice cream shop, High Voltage Creamery.
Whereas a mural can be completed in a few days, Lopez's oil paintings can take months.
"I can't rush the paint," he says. "I feel like I have this relationship with the paint — there's an intimacy there. It's not just throwing paint on the canvas, but I'm very familiar and close to not only my brush, I'm very aware of what it does, and the paint as a substance and the mediums I use. Here in my studio, it's the one place in the world where I am in full control."
With each precise brushstroke in his intimate, story-laden scenes, Lopez continues to take one step further from his challenging past, and one step closer to his dream of becoming a modern master of painting whose work is talked about even after he really is gone.
"I believe in myself so much that these paintings are going to outlast me," he says. "I've devoted my whole life to this." ♦
Daniel Lopez: World War Me • Reception Fri, June 2 from 5-9 pm; on display through July 3, Mon-Thu from 10 am-6 pm, Fri-Sat 10 am-7 pm • Free • Entropy • 101 N. Stevens St. • godffiti.com • entropyspokane.com
