Week 7: Monica Kim Garza

Monica Kim Garza is a Mexican-Korean artist who's paintings specialize in the depiction of care-free women, often with larger body types. Although she is a multimedia artist and has several sculptures done, most her recognized work is based around these paintings of women. Kim Garza cataloged a majority of her paintings through the year 2017 by use of her website, since then it is cataloged bia artsy a website in which she also sells her pieces.

One of these pieces is Hymfr, or Hell Yeah Mothafuckn Right (2016), in which three women sit atop of a platano con palma that is floating atop the ocean. They look as though they are posing for a photo, or better yet they were caught in a moment of pure enjoyment dancing to some reggaeton that's probably playing from the yacht they just casually own. Kim Garza's work is centered around the figure of brown women and as such they are always naked (or near naked- sometimes they wear thongs). The artist does not do this with the intention of making a political statement of some kind, it is just something that she finds beautiful and therefore decides to immortalize. The women in the paintings never look like they are having a boring time, even in instances where there is nothing but them and a bed they simply look relaxed. The artist's ability to portray her female subjects as simply being is incredibly powerful; often female subjects are relegated to the role of caricature or movement billboard, but to Monica Kim Garza they are simply women living their best lives, freely and without apology.