Carmen Lomas Garza

Dia de los Muertos/Ofrenda para Antonio Lomas (Fig. 36) is an art piece from the years 1988-90 found in the third chapter called “A Tejana on the West Coast.” This chapter does the best in capturing the rise of Garza’s artistic career and her launch to creating art in a more mature light. Garza’s time on the West coast got her to expand on her artistic development, including having new forms of art like cut-out also known as papel picado and installation art. Dia de los Muertos/Ofrenda para Antonio Lomas is an installation that includes the cutout forms of her art, but also has the sense of her previous art in other chapters where it seems like it is a still of an everyday happening. A kitchen is visible and has strong likelihood to other kitchen of everyday like but the difference is that this kitchen is decorated with cutouts that represent the celebration of Day of the Dead, and in the background a tapestry-like cutout is displayed with a strong resemblance to Garza’s other artwork showing her everyday life occurrence for a gardener. While Garza’s artwork began with pencils, and charcoals as her materials, she expanded to painting and then to cutouts installations and close-ups in her art. This is a progress that Garza goes through by going into other mediums of art and making those mediums fit to her style of artwork in addition to making it unique.