A Surrealist GIF Art Twist on All-Too-Human Themes

In the world of Xaviera López, even the ordinary becomes surreal. Her GIFs, equally whimsical and unnerving, bring to life a world that screams magical realism. A simple action, like taking a sweater off, becomes a strange experience when seen as a constant loop. As a female figure pulls the item over her head and reveals a bra underneath, black patches spread over her skin and the sweater reappears. This prompts the same movement, the same action repeating, and the figure is shocked every time it happens.

Working primarily with black-and-white with bursts of red, López put this uncanny viewing experience to use through her imaginative scenes and visual language.

“I've been drawing since I was a kid,” López tells The Creators Project. “In art college I got fascinated by video and animation. Then I worked for a while as an art director for advertising and one day in 2013 I discovered Vine. I instantly fell in love and said to myself: I´m going to do this or nothing. And from there I expanded to other formats like GIF and film.”

Her pieces take inspiration from “art history, the feminine, Japanese art, my yoga practice, nature, connections, language, curiosity.” While some of the scenes looks fantastical, they are definitely “inspired by the personal” and serve as explorations of what she calls “mixed emotions.” Her practice stemmed from the need to be “very resourceful,” to push the boundaries of what she could use to make art.

“They say that kids need boredom to be creative and intelligent,” writes López. “When I first started making Vines, you couldn't upload videos. You had to only use your phone to create. Each tap was an animation frame. I didn't have a decent tripod or anything professional so I taped my phone to a glass jar and started making one or two animations per day.” In these limitations, she found creativity. Her aesthetic reflects this: many of the scenes depict everyday images, use bright colors sparingly, and fit intricate patterns and details into a small span of time.

"I see my work as an ever-evolving self-portrait," she explains. "It's all about my journey into love (loving myself, people and things), so romantic love is a very important part of this. I like classic Romanticism, too."

In her GIFs, the metaphorical becomes literal, a universality making up a lot of López’s work. “I think one of the most amazing aspects about doing and sharing things that are meaningful to you is that you attract people that are on the same page and this is a very magical cycle.”

To learn more about Xaviera López, click here.

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