Week 6: Carmen Lomas Garza

Among many of Carmen Lomas Garza's works, I believe this one to be one of the most prominent and beautiful. As soon as she established herself as a professional artist, she later experimented with "fantasias" which were explorations of her mind to "investigate 'imagined worlds.'" (Cortez, 57). These experiments were also a great way for Lomas Garza to exhibit her passion for color. One of the works that was considered a "fantasia" was Heaven and Hell II which was created in 1991 using alkyd and oil on canvas. This painting displays a stark contrast between the jubilant nature of heaven and the dreariness of hell. Lomas Garza uses soft and cool color to paint heaven and its residents while she uses harsh and warm colors to evoke a feeling of uneasiness and terror in hell. She then blurs the line between the two worlds to illustrate the idea that heaven and hell are closer to one another than we realize. I also saw this work as different from the rest because it was a little darker in nature than most of her other works. Although this piece is a bit darker, it still has Lomas Garza's signature look to it. It also seems as if she added people she knew in Heaven and makes this image look like one of her other memories.