A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
Headshot of David Lozano, an adult person with a fair skin tone, short gray hair and beard, and glasses.

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David Lozano

Associate Professor, Adjunct

he/him

Contact

Bio

David Lozano (b. Houston) is a Chicago-based mixed media artist and associate professor, adjunct at the School of the Art Institute. He has exhibited at galleries throughout the United States and has received many grants including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors award. His work is included in prominent local collections and has been reviewed in publications such as the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times and the L.A. Times. Public art by Lozano can be found in Houston, Texas and at the Berwyn L train station stop for the Chicago Transit Authority in Chicago, Illinois.

Awards

Chicago Transit Authority public art program, Berwyn L train stop, Chicago, IL, summer 2025; Artist Fellowship Award Recipient, Illinois Arts Council, 2022; Community Arts Assistance Program Grant, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, 2006–2008; The Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant Award, 2004; Pasta Grant, Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County, Heights Streetcar Mural,1998

Exhibitions

Puncture, William Campbell Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas, 2026; ;Now and Then, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL, 2025; The Back Room Show, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2023; David Lozano Solo, Alice Center, Baskes Rotunda Goodman Theater, Chicago, IL, 2021; Madera Picado, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2018; The Fabulous Flux, Safety–Kleen Gallery One, Elgin Community College, Elgin, IL, 2015; Disparate Idioms and Desires, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2014; Since I’ve Been Away, PG Contemporary Gallery, Houston, TX, 2012; BareBack Baroque, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2010; Queer Interiors and Phthalo Blue, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL, 2008; Maladjusted Beauty, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2007; A Crush of Veils and Glimmers, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2005; Paintings, Portraits and a Valentine, Contemporary Art Workshop, Chicago, IL, 2004; Glamour Fuck, Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2003; David Lozano, Recent Paintings, Mo Mong, Houston, TX, 2000; David Lozano and Andrew Colquitt, Studio 107, Austin, TX, 2000; SuperFabulous, A painted installation, Art Gallery, Houston Community College Central, Houston, TX, 2000

Personal Statement

Earlier works of mine explored idealized erotic imagery, painterly motifs, and graphic elements of domestic décor—probing identity, memory, home, and queer culture through shifting spatial tensions. My recent work takes on culturally layered references to explore the intersections of craft, value, and identity. These pieces challenge hierarchical perceptions of value and the cultural aesthetics of craft. Papel picados (cut paper banners), milagros (votives), and other familiar forms undergo a transfiguration into exalted, flamboyant expressions and gestures that confound tropes of ethnicity, queerness, desire, and masculinity.

Portfolio

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

In this course we will focus on disciplinary and interdisciplinary art and design practices of contemporary art production. This team-taught, year-long class explores the materials and techniques of surface, space, and time (2D, 3D, and 4D), as well as the connections and interplay of these areas. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, traditional with the contemporary, and makes visible a variety of approaches in current cultural production in order to foster the development of students? emerging practices as makers and thinkers.

In this interdisciplinary studio course students will be authorized to use a variety of school shops, materials and equipment; including the woodshop, plaster studio, digital lab, sewing machine, hand tools, sound and video production, digital workflows and principles of visual fundamentals. This is a hands-on making class, faculty present artists and content related to a particular toolkit and, or project theme. Every section of Core Studio has shared learning outcomes which are uniquely realized by each Core faculty partnership.

Students should expect a fast-paced studio environment. In Core Studio students will complete short assignments as well as longer multi-week projects. Assignments are designed to help students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials, processes, and themes presented by faculty.

Class Number

1366

Credits

3

Description

In this course we will focus on disciplinary and interdisciplinary art and design practices of contemporary art production. This team-taught, year-long class explores the materials and techniques of surface, space, and time (2D, 3D, and 4D), as well as the connections and interplay of these areas. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, traditional with the contemporary, and makes visible a variety of approaches in current cultural production in order to foster the development of students? emerging practices as makers and thinkers.

In this interdisciplinary studio course students will be authorized to use a variety of school shops, materials and equipment; including the woodshop, plaster studio, digital lab, sewing machine, hand tools, sound and video production, digital workflows and principles of visual fundamentals. This is a hands-on making class, faculty present artists and content related to a particular toolkit and, or project theme. Every section of Core Studio has shared learning outcomes which are uniquely realized by each Core faculty partnership.

Students should expect a fast-paced studio environment. In Core Studio students will complete short assignments as well as longer multi-week projects. Assignments are designed to help students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials, processes, and themes presented by faculty.

Class Number

1232

Credits

3

Description

In this course we will focus on the development of artistic research skills for students already engaged in a practice. Students take this required course in order to experience and develop a variety of research methodologies, both conventional and alternative, which include utilizing collections and archives in the School and the extended community.

Students will undertake various types of research activities: a) collecting and classification, b) mapping and diagramming, c) systems of measurement, d) social interaction, e) information search systems, f) recording and representation, and g) drawing and other notational systems.

Faculty directed, open-media, interdisciplinary, idea based assignments are designed to help students recognize work habits, biases, strengths, and weaknesses. Through this course work students will be able to identify the most productive research methods and making strategies to bolster their emerging studio practice. Critique as an evaluative process used in art and design schools, is a focus in this course. Various methods and models of critique are used in order to give students the tools to discuss their own work and the work of others.

Class Number

1440

Credits

3

Description

In this course we will focus on the development of artistic research skills for students already engaged in a practice. Students take this required course in order to experience and develop a variety of research methodologies, both conventional and alternative, which include utilizing collections and archives in the School and the extended community.

Students will undertake various types of research activities: a) collecting and classification, b) mapping and diagramming, c) systems of measurement, d) social interaction, e) information search systems, f) recording and representation, and g) drawing and other notational systems.

Faculty directed, open-media, interdisciplinary, idea based assignments are designed to help students recognize work habits, biases, strengths, and weaknesses. Through this course work students will be able to identify the most productive research methods and making strategies to bolster their emerging studio practice. Critique as an evaluative process used in art and design schools, is a focus in this course. Various methods and models of critique are used in order to give students the tools to discuss their own work and the work of others.

Class Number

1446

Credits

3

Description

This course explores bold, excessive, and emotionally charged gestures in art, focusing on artists who challenge traditional aesthetics through vibrant color, unconventional materials, and provocative themes. From rhinestones and glitter to deeply personal narratives, we¿ll examine the ways artists embrace what has been dismissed as ¿low-brow¿ to create powerful, meaningful work. Artists such as Nick Cave, Kehinde Wiley, Jeffrey Gibson, Jim Hodges, Pepón Osorio, and Ebony Patterson will guide our conversations and projects, as we consider how personal and cultural histories intersect with contemporary aesthetics. Adding to this discourse will be the big ideas found in the sublime ¿ historically and today. As we ask what makes something ¿truly awesome,¿ we¿ll explore the sublime¿s power in both art and everyday life.
Students will produce three artworks for critique, with at least one project developed as an installation. Readings will include writing on the Sublime by Edmund Burke, chapters from David Batchelor¿s Chromophobia, and Susan Sontag¿s Notes on Camp.

Class Number

1185

Credits

3