Presentation: Monica Kim Garza

The artist that I chose for this presentation is Monica Kim Garza. She is a thirty year old half Korean half Mexican female artist born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. More details of her are that she got her Bachelors in Art at CA College of Arts and that she left her nine to five teaching job to pursue her passion as an artist. She has forty four thousand Instagram followers and that is that platform through which many are exposed to her artwork. 

Her artwork depicts "carefree brown and round women" which are generally in a relaxed and leisurely posture and tend to be racially ambiguous. This is caused a lot of her audience to identify with the subjects in her artwork because many melanated big women of color lack sufficient representation and viewers identifying with the artwork is what Garza strives for. She has incorporated different Korean and Mexican cultural markers and aspects into her artworks such as Korean and Spanish words. 

The reason I chose to present on Garza is because I am interested in exploring how her work contributes to the empowerment of big-bodied women. I also wish to explore and look into themes of ambiguity in her artwork, i.e. not knowing definitively the race or sexuality of her subjects. I was also drawn to Garza because her use of social media sites such as Instagram show her new aged approach to developing a fan-base and also demonstrates that she explores new ways and methods of getting her art out there.