Shark on Padre Island

Carmen Lomas Garza's piece, Hammerhead Shark on Padre Island is a painting that really stuck out to me. I enjoyed spending time interacting with all Garza's work featured in the book. I found her style and content to be refreshing and relate-able. Although always in danger of becoming sentimental and kitschy, the genuine love and sincerity in Garza's work always seems to prevent such pitfalls. I read her someone who is deeply connected to her family and to herself across time and space, and her work comes from that place of connection and understanding. It is refreshing to see images of a childhood from the perspective of a young person who appears to feel safe, loved, and supported by a whole community of people. I find that representations of healthy and peaceful community/family dynamics are relatively rare, and that rarity is only part of what makes Garza's work so refreshing, and even cathartic. Her work never feels fake or disconnected from a world that is not always to healthy and peaceful, and that understanding present in the work gives it the edge it needs to feel real. Nowhere doesthat tension feel more evident than in Hammerhead Shark on Padre Island. As in many of her paintings, a special attention is places on connected community/family dynamics, people and children engaging in play and enjoyable activities, and a participation with the landscape and natural world, but, of course, there is a large bleeding shark that has been pulled out the water. The shark seems to remind us that even connected communities engaged in peaceful activities are not exempt from danger. Even the a child who feels safe is aware of this tension that is inherint in being a part of the cycle of human lives, and Garza's willingness to acknowledge that in her paintings is a part of what makes her work so successful and beautiful.