LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes presents Arte para la gente, The Collected Works of Margaret Garcia, a retrospective exhibition with more than 75 artworks by pre-eminent Chicana artist Margaret Garcia. Arte para la gente is a traveling exhibition organized by the Museum of Ventura County and curated by Anna Bermudez, Curator of Inclusion and Cultural Initiatives, in collaboration with LA Plaza’s curatorial team led by Karen Crews Hendon, Senior Curator. It features Garcia’s vast body of work that captures and encapsulates her culture, family, community, and urban life in Los Angeles and beyond. As an elder in the Los Angeles Chicana/o Art Movement for the past five decades, Margaret Garcia has championed and advocated for women, community, and individuals who are marginalized by society. By revering the people, neighborhoods, and local landmarks of her pueblo through her colorful portraits and landscapes, Garcia celebrates the subjects that have inspired her art and the creation of its ever-evolving community. 

Born in Boyle Heights, Margaret Garcia is the fifth of seven generations of Americans whose Mexican, Indigenous, and Chicana/o roots and culture are deeply embedded. Her discipline and artistic practice are profoundly reciprocal, and her art is a vehicle that brings people together. As a renowned mentor and teacher, she encourages other artists to reach into their souls and challenges their talents to create art that is authentic to them and reflects their passion for the subjects they are painting. Arte para la gente invites the public to do the same, to see through the artist’s lens, see themselves, and see how daily life can be activated with a cultural currency that defines a place and its people. 

I am a Chicana Artist and I define Chicana art by producing it.  In my life I would like to leave a body of work that would reflect the individual within my culture. To unmask the cliché and expose what is human so that we are not judged as stereotypes and yet maintain the richness of our heritage. –Margaret Garcia 

Soy una artista chicana y defino el arte chicano produciéndolo. En mi vida me gustaría dejar un cuerpo de trabajo que refleje al individuo dentro de mi cultura. Desenmascarar el cliché y exponer lo humano para que no seamos juzgados como estereotipos y, sin embargo, mantengamos la riqueza de nuestra herencia. –Margaret Garcia 

Promotional support for Arte para la gente generously provided by Lazer Broadcasting KXLM 102.9 • KLJR 96.7 • KOXR 102.1  

Arte para la gente, The Collected Works of Margaret Garcia is made possible in part by the support of The Port of Hueneme.

Image: Margaret Garcia, Night on Figueroa Street, 2022, Oil on wood panel, 48.25” x 60” inches. Courtesy of the artist.