Kiko Lopez

Kiko Lopez was born in 1962 in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, and grew up in Miami, Florida. He developed a mastery in ceramics at an early age, establishing his first atelier at fourteen. Throughout his teenage years he would experiment with wood, steel, and acrylic, creating sculptures under the watchful eye of sculptor Barry Massin, in Coconut Grove, Florida.

Lopez attended the University of Miami where he studied architecture under Liz Plater-Zyberk, and where he won the distinguished “Best Designer” award in his freshman year. After graduating he moved to New York, working for Robert A.M. Stern, before returning to school, this time to RISD, for more study of architecture and industrial design. It was in Providence that he made his first forays into hand-blown glass.

After taking his degree in 1990 Lopez relocated to Bonnieux, in the Provençal region of France. With his wife, he opened an architectural office specializing in restoration, and a design atelier in Les Beaumettes. Ever since, he has completed orders for furniture, objects, lights, and architectural elements (glass walls, screens, doors, and candlesticks), but has come to specialize in the design, manufacture, and installation of monumental works combining glass, crystal, and light.

Lopez’s upbringing fostered his keen sensitivity to the play of light, making his artistic transition to glass as medium natural. Both Puerto Rico and Florida, with their high contrast between light and shade, gave him an eye for the luminous, the translucent, and the opaque, and nourished his sense of line and form alike. Such has led him to the primary concentration of his dedicated studio work—the unique application of antique mirroring techniques, like the rare craft of Pâte de verre, and the creation one-of-a-kind tableaux in silver and glass.

Submitted by Maison Gerard