![]() ![]() Gina Marí Garcia in her space at The Art Studio. I didn’t have to go looking for supplies or anything. Everything was all there to start again, to start painting. “He said, ‘Just come watch me work.’ And when I watched him work I would do little things on the side, and those little things people seemed to like and responded to. “He’s always been very encouraging,” she says. Landry offered to let Garcia use his space to create her own work. “I said, ‘Oh my god, is that Greg Landry?’ I used to sneak out my window to go see him play at the Nocturnal Lounge when I was 14 or 15 years old.” In 2011, while helping Busceme set up for a show, she met The Studio’s new tenant, who was also a musician. “I am going to a place where I am absolutely safe - I am going to The Studio.” “I thought, I am going to go to a place where all the men are either too young or too old for me,” she says, laughing. Everything I’ve created people are going to really enjoy because it’s all very eye catching - which leads to ‘Eye Candy’ being the name of the show.”Īfter Garcia’s divorce, The Studio seemed like the perfect place to find herself. “I was watching old skate videos, surf videos and (listening to) lots of post-punk music. “I went back to my youth and started thinking about what I liked when I was young,” she says. This show is not only a literal return to where Garcia grew up artistically, but also a spiritual journey back to when she was in her late teens. I just threw them into a big bucket and when they got so terrible I got new ones.” “I didn’t even know about brush care until I worked at Painting with a Twist. “I am a disgustingly dirty artist, so I don’t want people to see the grossness of my paint station and my brushes,” she says, giggling. ![]() As she focuses intensely on the work, the paint covers her hands, sometimes streaking across her face as she sweeps her hair back whiles builds the images layer upon layer. I use my hands, big brooms - whatever I find around that can make texture and get more paint on the piece than on me.”Īnyone who has seen Garcia at work knows she fails in that. I work on wood - I’m very rough,” she says. Garcia’s work is abstract, and she lists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Willem de Kooning and Robert Rauschenberg’s assemblages and collages among her influences. Gina Marí Garcia works in her studio space. “When was I happy without requiring something out of another person or from the world or materialistically? And I thought being at The Studio and having so much support without having to ask for it. “It was a very traumatic breakup and I was like, ‘What am I going to do with my life - where am I?’ I tried to be very pure of mind - where was I happiest?” she says. Then, when she was 31, she left her husband. Until she was 30 she says she was just being a mom - it was a different life. “And then life happened and the plan changed, like it tends to do.” “My friend’s mom was a tenant - we were over at the White House Building then - and we went and I found that’s where I wanted to be and that’s what I wanted to do. “I went and talked to him, and he said, ‘Come over, we’re always looking for people to help,’” Garcia says. Garcia is an “Art Studio Kid.” When she was in sixth or seventh grade at Odom Middle School, Busceme visited to do a clay demonstration. “I guess I always wanted to be the art lady when I was little that’s what I was always draw to - and now I get to be the art lady, and it is super fun.” “I would go crazy and say, ‘Miss Garrett is here.’ I would look at her long hair and all her bracelets and know the art lady was there,” she says. This is Garcia’s first solo show at her “home.” She said her first interaction with The Studio was in fourth grade when TASI founder Greg Busceme and long-time tenant Suzanne Garrett would come to her school as part the Beaumont school district’s Young Audiences program. The petite artist is preparing for her exhibition “Eye Candy,” which opens with a free reception from 7 p.m. It’s ready to go, and I’m just tweaking - we still have some more time.” “I get it all out, and then I’m more clear when it’s time to create. “I have this terrible habit - I’ll work, work, work, for months before the show and then, maybe a month or two before the show, I’ll paint over everything, start all over fresh,” she says. On a cool January afternoon, Gina Marí Garcia is working hard, smearing paint on a variety of surfaces. Photo by Andy Coughlan Gina Marí Garcia’s solo exhibition mixes colorful confection with spiritual soul ![]() Gina Marí Garcia will present her recent work in “Eye Candy” at The Art Studio, Feb.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |