About the Artist
Kevin Garcia’s artwork is a reflection of his own cultural fusion. Born and raised in Mineola, NY, as a first-generation American of Colombian descent, Kevin’s background has greatly impacted the varied themes and media reflected in his art. One of his earliest memories of a trip back to Colombia was being the sole person repeatedly awoken by a rooster’s crow in the early morning hours on an Uncle’s farm. As a child, the sound was awe-inspiring, and in some way, came to represent his connection to the foreign land. Over the years, the rooster became an intimate symbol for Kevin, using it interchangeably in his artwork to express human action and emotion.
Kevin’s love of art and travel resulted in early exposure to Mexican and South American indigenous art and sculpture. He found an attraction for such work, and later on, to the similarities he could find between it and ancient Asian deity art. In his piece, Untitled, inspired by the images and colors depicted in ancient Tibetan theologic art, he explores the potential wrath of God.
In The Atom, he utilizes science to explore the individual’s place as part of a larger organism. No matter how disparate the pieces may seem- a rooster as the nucleus of an atom- the pieces fit together to form a larger cohesive being. And the wonder that we could be part of an even larger, possibly absurd, possibly benevolent, possibly disturbing organism.
If there is a consistency to Kevin Garcia’s work, it is diversity. Even during his Studio Art studies at Stonybrook University, Kevin refused to be confined by a particular media or artistic theme. He works with paint and sculpture freely and creates art as an experience, not primarily as an intellectual message. Though each work has a theme, he describes his creative process as, “a meditation, free from thought, a vehicle to freedom”. It is in this spirit, that he invites the viewer to experience his work uniquely. There is room within his work – like the space between the nucleus and electrons of an atom- for the viewer to interpret and create their own message.