Presentations: Monica Kim Garza

One artist’s work that caught my attention during this week’s presentation was this painting by Monica Kim Garza. All the pieces shared by the presenter, Armando Berumen, were pretty attention grabbing. The nudity at first made me uncomfortable in a class but I really felt the style and images were unique. Her technique is pretty interesting; It looks acrylic to me and I love the layered look she used for the water. The contract between the blue water and the warmer skin tones of the women makes the colors really stand out. I liked the imagery in this one most, though, because I feel like it shows beauty in women that do not fit into today’s size standards of beauty, which include being lighter skinned and a size zero. The women in the painting are all curvaceous and proud. They are also confident enough to flaunt their bodies at a public beach which I feel sends a very good message relating to body positivity. The inclusion of darker skinned women also made me like this picture. The presenter also described how the women are performing actions most people would not be expecting thicker women to be doing. Here they are freely stretching, maybe doing yoga, and surfing at the beach. More interesting is that the surf boards are actually sharks. This eludes to the idea that these women are fearless as well, which goes along with message about confidence and body positivity. The painting, overall, tells women to love their bodies and that you can do whatever you want, no matter your body size or society’s expectations of you.