Joanna Keane Lopez (b. 1991, Albuquerque, NM) is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of sculpture, photography, site-specific installation, and the vernacular craft traditions of the American Southwest. Her practice engages earthen architecture, craft methodologies, and archival research to explore the relationships between land, architecture, and the materiality of adobe, wood, paper, and textiles. Inheriting adobe building knowledge from her family in New Mexico, Keane Lopez continues the craft legacy of enjarradoras and adoberas—women who specialize in traditional earthen architecture. Through sculpture, installation, and educational workshops, she reimagines building practices and craft histories to investigate themes of memory, fragmentation, post-colonial materiality, vernacular architecture, military industry, and land contamination.
Keane Lopez has exhibited nationally at institutions which include: SITE Santa Fe, The Momentary of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The San Jose Art Museum, The National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum, de Saisset Museum, Akron Art Museum, Sarasota Art Museum and has been supported by the Jack K. and Gertrude Murphy Award, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.