Jose Lopez Vergara
United States
Jose Antonio Lopez Vergara was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1994. He now resides in Spain where he spent most of his childhood and teenage years.
Jose’s innate artistic nature helped him show an early interest and sensibility to the visual arts. His first encounter with the visual arts happened while visiting the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. For the first time he felt the power of the awe-inspiring works of great Masters like Rubens and Velazquez. His school often organized visits to the Museum so he quickly developed a strong interest in classical painting and was determined to be like one of those great magicians who painted incredible pictures.
Looking for a way to earn a living as a painter and trying to find the technique he needed, the young artist began an Art major in college. This experience barely lasted 3 months; it was nothing but a disappointment to him. He couldn’t find what he was looking for in the contemporary art world and decided to quit his studies.
After a long period of uncertainty, Jose used his time to draw at home and build an online audience. This was an important phase of artistic and personal growth, which brought him many good things. Jose gained popularity sharing his artwork on social media and started selling his work online. A couple of months later, different international online journals contacted him, and his work got a lot of media attention. This catapulted his desire to keep drawing.
Following this development and still hungry for a classical education, Jose found the Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. There he studied and worked under two of today’s most notorious realist painters, Maestro Michael John Angel and Jered Woznicki. During his time in Florence he became submerged in the rich art history of the city and fell in love with the process of creating pieces like those he admired.
During his artistic career Jose Vergara has been interviewed and featured on The Huffington Post, Daily Mail UK, and Juxtapoz Magazine amongst other renowned online journals. He has been invited to teach workshops at La Galeria Roja in Seville, Spain and has worked as an artist for big companies such as Lens Crafters in Miami, Florida and Horus Pharma in Paris, France. Most recently he was awarded third place in the 2018 ARC Scholarship competition.
Today, Jose follows the tradition of classical realist painting and tries to capture moments in time with his work. His principal aim is to portray the truth of nature and to find the hidden beauty that surrounds us.
* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 14th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.
