Nicola López (b. 1975) was born in Santa Fe, NM and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She has also spent a generous amount of time outside the US, including studying at the Escola de Artes Visuais (School of Visual Arts) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1996. Her interest in other cultures was nurtured during her undergraduate studies as an anthropology major at Columbia University. In 2002 López attended the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture in Maine, and in 2004 she received her MFA in visual arts from Columbia University. During her art studies, she spent time in Tangier and Assilah, Morocco. The academic and direct exposure to different cultures and locations has been a great influence on López’s work, which often focuses on how place is constructed and represented; she explores these concepts through drawings, prints, mixed media collages, and installations. López has received support for her work through a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship and a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, among others. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United State and internationally at museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museo Rufine Tamayo in Mexico City, and the Denver Art Museum. It has also been featured in solo exhibitions at the Chazen Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in addition to a site-specific work created for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013.