Rhonda Lashley Lopez
Rhonda Lashley Lopez is a fine art photographer living in northern New Mexico whose work reflects a life narrated by nature. She prints her own photographs using traditional and digital processes — platinum/palladium, cyanotype, archival ink — and often uses Japanese papers, vellum and gold leaf.
Until a few years ago, she worked as a journalist and documentary photographer. Her documentary photo book, Don’t Make Me Go to Town: Ranchwomen of the Texas Hill Country, was published in 2011 by the University of Texas Press.
Then she set out on a new path, pursuing a different kind of photography, something more expressive and personal. Her recent, ongoing project is “Liable to Disappear,” about holding something in your hand for only a moment before it’s lost. Rhonda and her daughter, Emily Cardwell, a composer and singer, currently are collaborating on a multimedia project.
Like many, I’ve lost people I loved, failed at relationships, felt utterly disappointed with humanity, lost parts of my body to cancer, and watched the ongoing destruction of nature. And if there is a gift from all this, it is understanding how beautiful and sacred life is.
Artist’s Statement
I’ve never been a great talker, so it makes sense that I learned to express myself through writing and the photos I make. At first I used photography to show things and tell stories, but now I’m trying to express what’s inside … like going from journalism to poetry. All these thoughts and feelings — the angst and joy and questions and yearning — want to be released. It’s like sending a ping out into the universe to see if anything out there hears and understands.
My latest, ongoing project is “Liable to Disappear,” about holding something in my hand for a moment and then — it’s gone. Like many, I’ve lost people I loved, failed at relationships, felt utterly disappointed with humanity, lost parts of my body to cancer, and watched the ongoing destruction of nature. And if there is a gift from all this, it is understanding how beautiful and sacred life is.