Oscar Lopez: Your Food, My Work, Our Land

Exhibition catalog for the Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture
The third in a series documenting projects in Mural Alley at Fort Mason Center
Foreword by Mike Buhler; introduction by Frank Smigiel

From Mike Buhler’s foreword:
Your Food, My Work, Our Land by Oscar Lopez is a visual testament to the deeply interwoven histories of labor, land, and the hands that feed us. Painted along the walls of our “mural alley” at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, Lopez’s work finds fertile ground in a space shaped by movement, transition, and layers of lived experience. These murals stand as both monument and meditation—an homage to the people whose work sustains us, often without recognition or permanence.
This is more than a collection of murals; it is a sweeping narrative rendered in paint, pigment, and form. Lopez brings to the forefront the lives of migrant and agricultural workers—many of whom are immigrants and people of color—whose labor has nourished generations. He portrays them not as background figures, but as dignified individuals with rich, often unspoken histories....Drawing from the visual traditions of Mexican muralism and American social realism, Lopez’s work remains firmly rooted in the present. He fuses historical reference with contemporary urgency, highlighting the consequences of industrial agriculture, climate change, and displacement. Through his imagery, the viewer is invited to look beyond the surface: to see a tomato not just as food, but as the culmination of effort, migration, and generational struggle. In doing so, Lopez asks us to reconsider what truly sustains us—and at what cost.

64 pages
7 x 9 inches