Unsettled Horizons: the Expanded Prints of Nicola López

Curated by William Morrow (Project-Based Independent Curator and Consultant), UNSETTLED HORIZONS: THE EXPANDED PRINTS OF NICOLA LÓPEZ, brings together twenty-five years of engagement with the medium. The exhibition aims to present the artist’s commitment to exploring the inherent and often overlooked intersection of our built environment and nature, reflecting the interconnectedness of our ever-present physical past with the future. Tracing her innovations in self-published work alongside her collaborations with some of the finest master printers and publishers of our time, UNSETTLED HORIZONS highlights López’s unfettered approach to pushing the limits of print. The exhibition includes over 50 editioned, unique prints, and installations, utilizing varied techniques of explosives, aquatint, collage, intaglio, lithography, linocut, silkscreen, and woodblock on an array of equally diverse substrates.

Drawing from international research and residencies around the globe, combined with formal studies in anthropology and fine art, López’s keen powers of observation and expertise in her craft bring to the forefront a world of envisioned possibilities. López suggests her work is often “exploring the way that human-built structures intersect with other systems of nature. Architecture becomes geology, and vice versa. Buildings grow like crystalline structures and eventually return to the earth. Buildings also take on animate qualities, becoming bodies as well as embodiments of social ideals, ambitions, fears, and failures.” Additionally, her work often addresses broader issues of displacement and hybridity, reflecting her life-long relationship with her native New Mexico and her experience as a transplant living in NYC for the last thirty years. López's use of mixed media and intricate detail adds depth to her exploration of these themes, inviting viewers to contemplate the relationship between humans, technology, and the natural world.

About the Artist:
Nicola López (b.1975) is based in Santa Fe, NM. Her work in drawing, printmaking, site-specific installation, sculpture, and video has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally and is held in numerous prominent institutional collections. It has been featured at museums such as MoMA (NY), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City, the Denver Art Museum, the Nevada Museum of Art, the Inside Out Museum (Beijing), and in solo exhibitions and projects at the Guggenheim Museum (NYC), The Metropolitan Museum (NYC), the Chazen Art Museum (Madison, WI), and the Albuquerque Museum. Nicola has participated in several residencies, such as La Curtiduría (Oaxaca, Mexico), Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA), and the Griffner Haus Residency (Austria). She has also received grants and fellowships, including a NYFA Fellowship in Drawing/Printmaking/Book Arts, a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, a Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, and a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, OR, and Arroniz Arte Contmporáneo in Mexico City. Nicola earned her MFA and BA from Columbia University. Since 2004, she has taught at institutions such as Purchase College, New York University, Cooper Union, Bard College, and Columbia University, where she held a full-time faculty position as Associate Professor of Visual Arts from 2013 to 2024.

About the Curator:  William Morrow is an independent curator, museum specialist, arts and culture consultant, and advisor to collectors based in Portland, Oregon. With over twenty years of experience curating high-level international art programs and expertise in building and interpreting major collections, he has become a highly effective thought partner to non-profit leaders and collectors across the country. His career-long commitment to fostering visionary artistic practices, deconstructing histories, and inspiring diverse audiences has been at the cornerstone of his curatorial practice. 

William has organized and curated hundreds of exhibitions, scholarly publications, lectures, commissioned projects, films, dance, theater, music, and poetry programs that include some of the leading thinkers and creatives of our time. He recently curated the anchor exhibition for Portland, Oregon’s 2023 Converge 45 Biennial and inaugural public exhibition for the Schnitzer Collection Gallery, WE ARE THE REVOLUTION. In addition to curating the forthcoming survey, Unsettled Horizons: The Expanded Prints of Nicola López for the Highpoint Center for Printmaking, he is curating a major survey of the work of Ed Bereal for the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinatti (2025).

Visiting Artist Lecture:
October 25, 1 PM, Nicola López and William Morrow, MCAD AUD150

Lecture hosted by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Sponsored by The Fine Arts Department and the Alice Fjelstul ’96 Visiting Artist Program, in partnership with Highpoint Center for Printmaking.

Gallery Hours:
Monday through Friday, 9–5 PM
Saturdays, 12–4 PM. 

Image: Façade | 2013 | Linoleum cut and monotype on laser-cut mylar | 110 1⁄2” x 152” | Unique | Published by Pace Editions