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Michelle, a Filipinx woman with black hair tied back in a ponytail, wears a black shirt and a gold watch. One of her hands is raised with her fingers in her hair. She is standing in a room with a ceiling light and gray and white walls and smiles, looking to the side.

Michelle Lopez

(she/her)Philadelphia, PA
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Michelle Lopez is an interdisciplinary sculptor and installation artist. She explores feminist and race politics through the lens of a minority body — as a skin, a shell, a mirrored reflection, an object of desire, a protest. She processes the violence of recent American political events, beginning with 9/11 and going into our present global warfare and societal collapse. Her research and exploitation of industrial materials and technologies, exposes our finite societal systems by inverting cultural tropes through her process of building. She uses the body in space and performance to consider how global-scale violence impacts us somatically in profound but invisible ways.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Ballast & Barricades, Institute of Contemporary Art, ICA Philadelphia (2019–20) and Commonwealth & Council, LA (2023). Two person and group exhibitions include: Ballroom Marfa, Texas (2024); CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2025); and ICA LA, Los Angeles (2024). Lopez received a Guggenheim Fellowship in the category of Fine Arts (2019); a Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Fellowship (2023, Exhibitions Fellowship and 2024, Artist Fellowship); and is represented by Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles.

Lopez is an Associate Professor in the MFA Fine Arts Program at The Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania and leads the Sculpture Division.