New Image Art is pleased to present, "Monica Kim Garza: Paintings 2014- 2018" a solo project featuring the Atlanta based painter.
Monica Kim Garza exhibited for the first time with New Image Art in 2015 for her debut solo exhibition, Super Soak Her and has since showed with us in multiple solo, group, and art fairs including most recently, Untitled 2017. Originating from her own image and multi-cultural background, Monica Kim Garza is intrinsically drawn to creating artwork using the female figure and the experiences of her characters. This image has evolved over the years and has come to be it's own motif. A sense of nostalgia and playful longing is often felt within the work, using memories from her personal life and travels as inspiration for narrative.
This survey of paintings features works from both past and present and depicts a consistent progression and command of painting over the years NIA has been working with Monica. Monica's early exhibited works began to set the foundation for the expressive painterly style she has become known for. Many of the works at this time depicted a repetition of figures and heavily applied paints as if she was allowing herself time to become more familiar with the figure she would soon become known for and the manner in which she chose to render those figures in a loose internalized way. As she began to progress and become more asserted in her own process we began to see more loose, less detailed versions of her full bodied dark skin female character and a more simplified approach to applying paint and narrative.
Monica's recent travels to Morocco, in the tradition of Matisse in Morocco or Gauguin in Tahiti, informed much of Monica's newer paintings depicting local women engaging in everyday activities via the female gaze. Monica’s women have a hunger for life and unabashedly take up space; as in her previous work, the artist is not afraid to dive into the pleasures of a full figure, while she simultaneously continues to experiment within the formal practice of figurative painting. Apart from the figure, Monica’s expressive approach to color, shape, collage and texture all play a larger role in the work demonstrating an affinity for experimentation and desire to portray women from an empowered point of view.
