"It is what it is, and it ain’t what it ain’t. I’m a pretty chill person, and my work, for me, is inspired by life, not conceptual ideas relating to movements. But art should be free for interpretation, so that’s what it is." So said Monica Kim Garza to Juxtapoz, the Atlanta-based painter who just opened a new solo show, Laredo, at the great V1 Gallery in Copenhagen this month. What is very apparent in her new show is that her chill vibe created an urgent, fast-paced series of works that have expanded her recent works into a story about not only America, but a particular story about Garza's father's home city, Laredo, Texas.
From the gallery:
Painted with seemingly quickly paced, equally urgent and impatient, gestural brushstrokes, the female figures and surrounding environments are rendered with just enough detail to set the imagination free. All the women share distinct bodily and ethnical features because they all embody the protagonist; Monica Kim Garza. The wonderful women doing things in the paintings are Garza’s body doubles and soulmates. Multiple self-portraits doing the things Garza does, dreams of, or feels. The unmistakable features are that of a true American, Garza is the daughter of immigrant parents, her mother is of Korean descent and her father of Mexican lineage. Garza has composed an idiosyncratic character that roams through art history and the ups and downs of contemporary life, often nude, and seemingly carefree, but never without purpose. She breaks Gauguin’s glasses and pervy colonializing gaze, taking back female form and freedom. She rides through ancient caves, Egypt and Mesopotamia with Picasso, Basquiat and Frida Kahlo in her posse. The paintings are contemporary and at the same time firmly rooted in art historical motifs and settings. We see Garza portrayed at the artist’s table, in the studio painting herself, or rather her selves, on horseback, on the mountain and reclining on a chaise lounge with La Virgen De Guadalupe resting above her head.
Laredo is an exploration of life through land and water, cigarettes, sex and coffee, food and alcohol. Inspired by the tales of Garza’s father, the exhibition stems from the city of Laredo in the American borderland, currently much disputed, and continues on into the world with a curious and fearless eye. Playfulness, sexiness, and all the moments we embody via nature, action and stillness, travel in and out of the works on canvas, paper and ceramics.
Read our recent interview with Monica Kim Garza here.
