BlackCommentator.com cartoonist/artist Eric Garcia produces historically based, politically charged criticism, with the goal of creating dialogue about the contemporary issues”. That’s how Garcia describes his artwork. A versatile artist working in an assortment of media, from paintings, to hand-printed posters, to sculpture installations, Garcia’s art has a common goal of educating and challenging. Click here to contact brother Eric. His website is southvalleyart.com.

Artist Statement

Every warrior has a weapon and mine is my art. In my work I try to visually examine the versions of North American history that have been overlooked, whitewashed, or flat out deleted. Aware that history is used as a strategy of domination, I attempt to subvert through my art the various dominant histories of the conquering powers. History, culture, and politics are three key issues of my work. I politically charge allegories of my cultural history of the Americas, in hopes that the viewer will learn, question and also react. I visually depict complex issues that have shaped our history, and in turn shaped our identity, and our future.

The media I use range from paintings, to hand-printed posters, to inked political cartoons, but they all have a common goal of educating and challenging. My artistic style is shaped by both early childhood influences of the comic-book graphic style and later by the theatric Spanish Colonial/Baroque. I fuse these two different –but connected– narrative styles by drawing out my figures as graphic caricatures, then placing them in dramatic settings, sometimes accompanied by satirical script. Like the comic-book cover and the Baroque paintings before them, I try to tell a story with just one crucial scene.

The power of imagery is a tremendous vehicle for delivering information. The Mexican muralists, Goya, and Guadalupe Posada, are only a few of the artists that showed me how powerful the visual can be. Through my art I try to make an assortment of visual objects that not only reflects on the past but also poses challenges to the present. I consider my art a historically based, politically charged criticism, with the goal of creating dialogue about the issues that affect history and identity.

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