Artist Statement

Born in Trujillo, Honduras and raised in West Palm Beach, Luz Garcia’s South Florida upbringing, her knowledge of her familial past with the American corporation, United Fruit Company (Dole brand) and her multinational cultural background (Cuban, Honduran) prompt her to interpret the world through a particular lens.

This most recent work is the product of exploring new modes of interpreting biographical subject matter and her family’s complex moral journey to the U.S. Garcia amassed her art practice through miniature graphite portrait drawings, which aim to capture the essence of her subject. Size matters. The size is of the drawings evoke feeling of intimacy because the viewer has to interpret the work at an unusually close distance.

El Sueño Americano and the Tributo I, II, III series are the product of exploring of alternative avenues. The wood panel series focus on using material as the means of communicating the complexities of an otherwise unknown story of the powerful and merciless effects of United States intervention in foreign countries’ domestic politics. Developing a tangible sense of significance that highlights this topic with justice is complicated, so the approach to the work relies heavily on intuition, research and patience.

El Sueño Americano is a juxtaposition of moments from the past and present that redefine the idea of what the American Dream means to a first-generation immigrant family. The passport book has a quality of storytelling, emphasized by the diluted tones of the photographs. Emboding a feeling of nostalgia , existing as a self-portrait of identity, family, and the American Dream (El Sueño Americano), in terms of what that means through the perspective of a female Latin American immigrant. Ultimately, a contradiction of the attitudes and climate that surround the topic of immigration today.