Biography

In her paintings and prints, Carmen Lomas Garza chronicles the histories of her family and community in the south Texas town of Kingsville. With the enthusiasm of a storyteller whose narratives unfold on vibrantly colored canvases, Garza recalls the traditions and customs of her rich Tejana (Texan-Mexican) heritage. Throughout her career, she has consciously avoided fashionable artistic trends in favor of a representational style that allows her to share her most cherished memories.

Garza was born into a family of five children in the rural community of Kingsville, Texas, in 1948, and she knew by the age of 13 that she wanted to be an artist. She was forced to teach herself how to draw, however, because art classes were not offered at the junior high school she attended. As a Mexican-American student, Garza faced discrimination on many levels—she was punished for speaking Spanish at school, ridiculed because she brought tortillas for lunch, and called names because of her “different” heritage. By the time she graduated from high school, Garza was “confused, introverted, and … angry.”1 After enrolling at Texas Arts & Industry University (now Texas A&M), Garza learned of the Chicano movement and decided to devote herself and her art to creating positive change. “In the most socio-political sense, Lomas Garza’s use of memory stands against the historical erasure of Chicano culture,” art historian Amalia Mesa-Bains has noted. “She remembers what we can never forget and thereby subverts the dominance of an Anglo society. Her chronicle tells the story of the everyday, the regional, the rural and the personal.”2

Garza’s childhood memories come to life in her monitos (little figures) paintings and prints, which record the rituals, celebrations, and everyday activities shared by many in the Chicano culture. In Sandía (Watermelon), she lovingly documents an evening spent enjoying watermelon with her family on the front porch of their modest home. She writes: “It’s a hot summer evening. The whole family’s on the front porch. My grandfather had brought us some watermelons that afternoon. We put them in the refrigerator and let them chill down. After supper we went out to the front porch. My father cut the watermelon and gave each one of us a slice. … It was fun to sit out there. The light was so bright on the porch that you couldn’t see beyond the edge of the lit area. It was like being in our own little world.”3

Indeed, Garza’s composition resembles a well-lit theatrical stage, on which her family performs a typical evening ritual. By extension, the elevated porch surrounded by flowering shrubs and glowing light bulbs can be read as a religious altar that honors and commemorates her loved ones. Such spiritual subtexts offer solace to Garza and other Chicanos, who have vigilantly resisted the erasure of their histories and customs from mainstream textbooks and educational curricula.

Garza’s compassionate works function metaphorically as tools for cultural healing. She has compared her art to “the salvila (aloe vera) plant when its cool liquid is applied to a burn or an abrasion. It helped to heal the wounds inflicted by discrimination and racism.”4 Garza’s cultural vignettes lucidly record a way of life that has shaped her personal and Chicano identity. And for those outside her culture, the paintings offer a glimpse of a world where the bonds of family and community provide the strength and vitality to persevere despite adversity. —A.W.

1. Carmen Lomas Garza, “A Piece of My Heart,” A Piece of My Heart/Pedacito de mi Corazón (New York: The New Press, 1994), 12.
2. Amalia Mesa Bains, “Chicano Chronicle and Cosmology: The Works of Carmen Lomas Garza,” A Piece of My Heart/Pedacito de mi Corazón (New York: The New Press in association with Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Tex., 1991), 15.
3. Artist’s statement, 2001.
4. Garza, 13.

(SJMA Selections publication, 2004)


Carmen Lomas Garza was born in Kingsville, Texas, in 1948. Inspired by her parent’s activism with the American G.I. Forum, Lomas Garza joined the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. She is a graduate of the Texas Arts & Industry University, Juarez-Lincoln/Antioch Graduate School, and San Francisco State University where she earned her M.A. in 1981. Lomas Garza is a recipient of numerous awards and has exhibited her work in galleries and museums across the United States.

---

Your current search criteria is: Artist is "Carmen Lomas Garza".