Carmen Lomas Garza

Incorporating her family in her art works is a way Garza projects positive images of the Chicano culture. Sandía/ Watermelon is a painting from 1986, created by gouache on paper.  This painting features Garza’s family, which includes her parents, grandparents, and siblings, out on the front porch of their home, enjoying watermelon under the moonlit sky. An interesting part of this painting is that Garza uses a method called “zoom-ins”, to recreate “focused examinations of particular details” in a separate painting, which derives from an eralier painting (Cortez, 48). Sandía from the Pedacito de Mi Corazón series (1986), is a “zoom-in” from Sandía/ Watermelon and it symbolizes the “core “or “heart” of the watermelon which is known to be the sweetest part (Cortez, 49). Relating to the love for her family, this illustrates the conspicuous point of the chapter, which is “familial unity and affection” (Cortez, 49). I enjoyed Garza’s artworks because it felt as if each and every one of them were telling a story by their images. How people are portrayed and placed in the images made me further develop a theory or an idea to what is going on in her paintings and what she is trying to tell to her audiences.