Arthur Lopez is one of the leading Santos carvers in New Mexico.  This piece is entitled “Tele-Lupe”.  The piece is part of his 2026 show, Altar Visions of the West. .

Starring the iconic imagery of Guadalupe, A brilliant juxtaposition of pop-culture nostalgia and sacred tradition, Tele-Lupe casts Our Lady of Guadalupe in a stunning, hand-carved television set that replaces static with serenity. Framed in rich natural wood with striking purpleheart accents and meticulously sculpted roses, Tele-Lupe transmits a timeless vision of grace directly into the space it inhabits. The signal is crystal clear, the aesthetic is masterfully executed, and the program is definitively inspiring. Set your dial, pause a moment, and experience a broadcast of pure tranquility

Arthur wrote of his show “Altar-Visions of the West”.

For generations, the global imagination has seen the American West through a cinematic lens—a landscape of Hollywood soundstages, romanticized archetypes, and exported myths. This vintage broadcast loop of cowboys and outlaws created a beautiful, shared story, but it often drifted above a much deeper, more tangible cultural reality that has thrived here for centuries. In Altar Visions of the West, radical regionalist Arthur Lopez tunes out the static of the mythologized frontier to celebrate the enduring, sacred craftsmanship rooted in the actual earth of the region. In this series, the mid-century television set is reimagined as a contemporary altar. Just as traditional New Mexican altar screens have historically provided a window into the divine, the vintage screen provided a window into a beautifully fabricated mythology. Lopez playfully collapses the distance between the sacred and the modern by hand-carving these “television” vessels entirely from wood, housing his figures within them. Every knob, vent, and screen is meticulously rendered by hand and finished with natural and water-based pigments— transforming the mass-produced geometry of industrial design into an intimate, artisan creation. While these works draw directly from a deep-rooted regional lineage, they transcend the boundaries of traditional devotional objects to stand as masterful works of contemporary fine art.

Lopez uses his virtuosic carving skills to engage in a sophisticated, witty dialogue with modern media. The result is a stunning technical paradox: rigid, mid-century technology sculpted from organic native materials. These pieces do not rely on found electronic components; they are skilled feats of pure sculpture, where every grain line and chiseled dial represents a deliberate aesthetic choice. Within these labor-intensive wooden consoles, the figures stand as the true, enduring anchors of regional identity. The individual pieces in the exhibition serve as specific, conceptual channels.
Altar-Visions of the West is an invitation to look past the screen and touch the grain. It reminds us that while myths are transmitted through airwaves, true culture is carved from the earth. Through this stunning new body of work, Lopez honors the hand of the artisan and proves that in a fast-paced digital era, the most radical act an artist can perform is to stay deeply, unapologetically rooted in their own culture.

The process for Arthur’s work is bound in tradition.  After the piece is carved, it is covered in gesso (a glue made from rabbit hide), which is allowed to dry and then sanded.  It is painted with both natural and watercolor pigments.  Natural colored pigments, such as brown, are derived from black walnut hulls.   These are the time involved and historic foundations for his work.  

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