Within Lopez’ world there are many landscapes: caves, a vast ocean, snow-scapes, living trees, that always leave a viewer with the sense that one has crossed over into the deep end. “I want viewers of my work to feel as they do just before going over the huge cliff at "Splash Mountain," or to feel the way they did as children when they found out that Bambi’s mother was about to die. That moment of extreme consciousness, when everything is so precious and one realizes something very important—which is different for everybody, and which according to Kierkegaard you cannot experience fully and take with you, because to do so would lead to madness.”

It is this madness that one can see in the wild-eyed stare that is such a part of Xavier Lopez’ work and permeates the insane smiles that set it apart and at the same time draws so many to it, while scaring the hell out of many others.  It is this smile that allies Lopez' work much closer to Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley and much less with the followers of say, Mark Ryden.  “That smile,” Xavier adds, “that is the void, that is the power-punch that tells the viewer that there is something else going on here.”