Week 5: Camille Rose Garcia

I found the presentation this week about the artist Camille Rose Garcia very interesting. The way she brought various influences from punk rock and Disney into her alternative cartoons created a really unique body of work. I thought it was surprising to see artwork from a Chicana artist that didn't have an overtly political message based on the previous artist's work we had seen so far in class. One work with the bird and dragon, specifically stood out to me. The way she layers so many different images and textures within her painting is fantastic. The small details also stood out, for example, viewing the work on my own, I noticed the small luchador masks on the butterfly-like figures. Luchador masks are such a distinct Mexican/Chicano image, yet here they enhance the cartoon, low-brow imagery. I think this adds to the narrative present in the painting. While we know she is interested in reinterpreting Disney stories, she brings in a small aspect of Chicana/o identity, and the bird and dragon could also be read like the serpent and eagle in the Mexican flag. These are speculations, but the more time spent with the work, the more the details appear to bring some remnants of her identity with them. I'm excited to hear about other artists that struggle with the labeling of Chicana identity in the contemporary art world and perhaps see how their artwork may reflect more of their identity than just at first glance.