Gonzalo Garcia

Based in Mexico City, figurative painter Gonzalo Garcia examines customs surrounding death and vulnerability, pop culture and violence. The human body has long been a theme of his artistry, initially rooted in anatomical research before evolving into a more abstract, conceptual interpretation of physicality. What began as a means of exploring homosexuality has transformed into a visual love letter to the body, transcending masculinity and femininity, embracing the tender and the disturbing in equal measure. Influenced by artists such as Cecily Brown, Edvard Munch, and Paula Rego, Garcia’s paintings are fluid and sensual; they are founded in flesh and florals, in muted fabrics, and in the repetition of limbs and other body parts. Twice now, Garcia has received Mexico’s renowned FONCA (National Fund for Culture and the Arts) scholarship, taking his approach a step further by fictionalizing Mexican history and folklore in his canvases. He earned his degree in Visual Arts from the Instituto Allende University in Guanajuato—an experience that played a pivotal role in his evolution. The artist, in an interpretation of history, subsequently depicted Mexico’s student protests from the late 1960s. 

 

Garcia has long honed his focus on identity. It makes sense, in this way, that the artist so vividly experiments with the language of painting. He might leverage small brushes, applying varied textures to showcase his creative process, blending color and consistency in a manner that helps the viewer understand his process. Garcia has expressed a desire to approach image-making from new perspectives, and his recent works are evidence of this. His exhibition Flesh at Mexico’s CAM Galería featured wallpaper works, paintings, and drawings—juxtaposing the masculine and the feminine, exploring the ramifications of power alongside softness in the palette. The birds, rabbits, and centaurs that comprise his subjects offer a unique interpretation of 1970s Mexican cinema, while the still-life flowers are based on his grandmother’s lithographs from childhood, painted in a manner that resembles the human body. The wallpaper in particular triggers the artist’s memory; Garcia relocated frequently as a child, and in every apartment, he observed the space’s wall coverings as a sign of deterioration. This is, perhaps, why simplicity so appeals to him (and why each work begins with a drawing: “the most generous medium,” according to the artist), laying the foundation for the language of painting. Garcia has ultimately created a body of work that serves an extension of his own experience—both lived and studied. 

 Gonzalo Garcia: Well, I was born in Puebla here in Mexico, but we moved around when I was still young, and eventually landed in Mexico City—this is where I have the most vivid memories as a child.

 

 It was both crazy and fascinating. I remember traveling in the subway a lot. To me it was a happy place and evokes a lot of nostalgia. My mom and grandmother were very protective of us children because of the drug situation. As a child in the eighties one of my strongest influences was TV and the pop culture of Mexico. By the time I was eight or nine years old, I had developed gay tendencies and was subject to a lot of the bullying in school. That affected a lot of my perception of life. I think my sensitivity is one of things that led me to art.

 

 Well, I lived through the misconceptions that my mom and my grandmother had about homosexuality due to their religious upbringing. My great grandmother was from Lebanon, and so were a lot of my family – ultra conservative and traditional, i.e. marrying very young and having dozens of children. For my grandmother, it was a sin to be gay. As I was raised mainly by my grandmother, a lot of her views affected me growing up. A lot of guilt was built up, and I was always hiding my feelings and ideas. My brother is gay too, but I couldn’t be open to him. He took on the responsibility of all of us in place of my father who was still in Puebla with another family, and he was likely to punish me if my gayness was too obvious.

 I always loved to draw but it was only during my university days that I felt the need to connect with all these feelings stored up on the inside of me for years. I wanted to make something meaningful out of it. That was the moment I realized that I was becoming an artist, because not only did it absorb me, it helped me express my sensitivities, which was the start of the healing process.

 

 From very young, actually. I was only six when I started to draw intensively. They’d put me in art class, drawing and painting. I inherited the talent from my grandmother who always wanted to be an artist but couldn't because of social restrictions on woman. As an unfulfilled artist, she saw in me this opportunity to fulfill her ambition, and it became her goal to turn me into this famous young artist—almost an obsession. That took the fun part of painting away. I was 11 or 12 then. I did not do any kind of art till I was about 18, in high school, when I started to reconnect with that early passion.

 

 To be honest, I was really planning on taking architecture at university. But, my mom kept reminding me of my talent and felt I should take up art. So, to appease her, I agreed to take art for only one semester. But that experience was so enjoyable, I continued with art school. Of course, you only do it because you love it; but you need something more to sustain your interest because being an artist is a total commitment and lifestyle. 

 

 Initially, I just drew whatever I pleased – a lot of women, of course, because there was no lack of women models for art school. But towards my final year at university, I began to make self-portraits with scenes of the local marketplace which somehow had a connection with my gay identity.  

 That’s right. I had this idea of mixing my own body parts with the body sections of cows and the pigs, like they were presented as meat in the market. That was the first time I saw the possibility of juxtaposing those images, because somehow, they brought together my consciousness of being gay. 

 

 After college I went to Queretaro to be with my family. I had to earn a living by doing illustrations for government publications. I was still doing these marketplace paintings of the pigs as well as portraits, but not selling anything. I already had this small studio downtown, and I started to make representative drawings of the cathedrals – and there were a lot of them. I also started to do design work for editorial projects. And then I met my gallerist from Monterrey.

 

 When I met Guillermo Sepúlveda, he was searching for new talent. He was the first one that took some interest in my work. He bought all the pigs and markets series of paintings – as an investment. And he invited me to make this show one year later.

This enormous gallery was the first gallery built in Monterey some 42 years ago. It was here that Julio Galan, for one, was discovered. I also worked with big names like Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo. 

 

And that's when I started to realize that I was an artist. I took photographs of my friends, and then I painted over them with flowers weaving their way around different parts of their bodies. I found it very exciting making these kinds of works. They were very potent, without

the extremely violent imagery that the early pig paintings had. I knew I could stay in that violence, but I was also searching for some fragility and softness. I wanted to grow my range of painting to express different moods.  I painted these flower scenes intermingled with the faces of my friends—that was around 2011.

 

 They came from a variety of places. For example, the wallpaper backdrops that often appear, come from childhood memories—because we kept moving to a lot of apartments here in Mexico City. I saw that wallpaper as a symbol of wear and tear—deterioration if you will.

 

Then in the nineties, Japanese cartoons were the thing in Mexico among my own generation. So my works have a lot of visual references to Japanese cartoons.

 

My interest in the historical aspects of Mexico began when I was doing these illustrations for historical literature. I started to research as background knowledge for the content of these books. Following that, I met Crissanto Frias, a very talented designer here in Mexico, designing history museums with a contemporary take. He invited artists to make interpretations of historical events in contemporary painting. That brought about this historical element in my work.

 

I then made this huge Mural about the French Revolution and how that European mindset impacted a lot of Latin and Mexican attitudes towards colonization and led to Mexico’s independence. A lot of the times my influences came because of the kind of jobs I had. All these influences are in play when I start to conceptualize my work in a natural, spontaneous way.

 

Foucault inspired me to delve into other philosophies and concepts in my own creative process, adding depth to my approach to imagery and symbolism. Reading is very different from just referencing photographs or other visuals. It opens your imagination to acquire all kinds of concepts and possibilities. Another strong influence, in 2009, was this other book “At the edge of the water”, from Agustín Yañez, which introduced a lot of fresh ideas to me.

 

And that's also why also I started to investigate the movies from the seventies I watched as a child. Now as an adult I see them in a new perspective. There’s always this social and cultural dimension of a different society and timeframe but with traces that resonate with our own culture and time.

 

 Well, my foundation is drawing. There is a misconception about drawing—that it's a lower art. Rather, to me, it's the most generous medium, because it's the most direct way to visualize ideas. I love to draw and make a lot of sketches around not only the paintings, but also playing around with ideas from the movies and books.

 

And after that, I love painting. I mean, it's a cliché, but I really enjoy the language of painting which I didn't understand until maybe three or four years ago. You could say that the first 10 years of my work were preparatory.

 

 

That's why I love not only applying the paint, but also ripping it out or having these very small brushes or textures that gives you various striations with that color, like a very small presence in the canvas that can evolve to anything. Also, I love how the original drawing shows at the end of the painting – which is more honest. You can understand the construction process. That's why I love to make these kinds of decisions not only on the canvass but also with the wallpaper I'm working on. The possibility with wallpaper is amazing because there are two dimensional paintings that they are now interlocking and adding a new dimension to the painting itself. 

 

 I was trying to reconnect with a lot of the things because I already have these references to Mexican history, for example, as well as the seventies movies. But I wanted to give a broader perspective to the work. So, I started to rekindle my own memories about the things that I loved to see on walls, especially the photos my grandmother took. She would make these lithographs of horses as a tribute to my grandfather. My grandfather, who made his living as a gambler, on horse racing, was a very macho man indeed. That started me thinking about the representation of horses in history painting and their association with emperors and kings who were able to rein in this tough masculine animal.

 

And then I thought, maybe it would be interesting to present another side to it in a much softer and delicate play on the horse theme. In the meantime, I was already exploring with still life of birds and rabbits in a Spanish flamenco style. Everything started to meld and take on this very poetic mesh of fragility and male body parts and sexuality. Also, the flowers that I painted started to have these lumps that represent how the external body can reflect the interior experience.

 

So that's why I held this exhibition called Flesh in CAM Galerìa. It’s reminiscent of Foucault’s references to the body and flesh, fragility, and homosexuality.