Emilio Lopez will have a residency in the Exhibition space in May and will show his own work during 10 Years of Het Bos.
We asked Emilio some questions:
Where do you find inspiration?
I’ve always been inspired by cartoons, videogames and graffiti. I feel like all of those 3 things have their own unique style and at the same time all 3 throw a constant barrage of ideas and concept that helped me developing my art more and more. To this day I love rewatching “The Amazing World of Gumball” to see the sheer amount of different characters and tropes they show, or replaying Nintendo games like “Mario Galaxy” or Xbox games like “Sunset Overdrive” to see all the different enemy/boss designs, or look at pieces from different writers to see how they change shapes, colors, effects, puppets for their artworks.
How has your style changed over time?
Growing up I was never interested in having a “realistic” drawing style. As a kid I loved drawing robots, monsters and characters for videogames, creating those sort of bootleg sequels for games that me and my friends used to play. In middle school I tried a more “comic book” approach with my style, but didn’t really feel it like it was mine. In high school I dropped the comic book look and started with a more cartoony style and realized that I hate drawing humans. I then started doing graffiti with a classmate of mine and from that point I realized what my style wants to be. A mash up of cartoons, graffiti and videogame aesthetic with crazy colors and expressions, with a touch of post apocalyptic vibes, that has now become KAIJU, my world building art project.
Describe your dream project?
Too many to describe, but one that I will always think about is to be art director for creating my own videogame. Having my characters and my ideas alive would be a dream come true. The idea is to create a 3D Rogue Like videogame (a genre of game where when you die, you repeat everything, but all the items/enemies/etc. you’ll find will be different, giving the game a lot of replayability), set in a post apocalyptic world, where you fight off monsters, corrupt police, corrupt government and otherworldly beasts with different crazy weapon combos. It would be a frenetic and colorful experience, that will show how all the things I watched, played and drew influenced the creation of this game. I want to do it also to show that videogames can and are a form of art.