Peter Erik Lopez is a Harlem-based painter whose large-scale oil portraits celebrate queer memory, cultural legacy, and intergenerational storytelling. Working in the classical tradition of live portraiture, Lopez invites LGBTQ+ artists, activists, and nightlife icons to sit for him in person—fostering intimate exchanges that resonate through his work. His sitters have included Peppermint, Alan Cumming, Amanda Lepore, and John Cameron Mitchell. In 2024, he was featured in OUT Magazine in the article “How I Bring Larger-Than-Life Queer Icons to the Canvas.”

A graduate of the Transart Institute for Creative Research, Lopez’s practice extends beyond portraiture into explorations of personal and inherited histories. His paintings often engage the family album as an unreliable archive, using loose canvas and symbolic disruptions to reveal elided traumas and complex racial identities. Drawing from his own background as the son of a German mother and Mexican father, Lopez confronts histories of violence, erasure, and survival through narrative figuration.

Currently, he continues to focus on the idea of erasure at a time when the American government is actively attempting to erase queer people and curtail queer rights. He has returned to painting large-scale portraits of queer individuals, yet across his varied projects, López constructs a visual community—an evolving archive of queer life, resilience, and belonging.