Artist Presentation: Monica Kim Garza

Monica Kim Garza is another artist who stood out to during the presentations. After the presentation I found her on artsy and Instagram and I’ve been social media stalking her work ever since. To be honest the first thing that stood out to me were the female bodies. These women were varying shades of brown and really curvy. As a black woman from the south these were the body types that surrounded me. My mom has a tiny waist, a big but, and thicker thighs. These paintings are how the women in my family look and it felt nice to see that represented in art.

Also this art reminded me of my own body. This is kind of funny to share on an academic blog but by 4^th grade I had basically gone through all of puberty. The body I had then is very similar to the body I have now. One of my friends in fourth grade, who was a very sweet girl, told me “Avianna your body would be perfect if your thighs weren’t so huge.” To be fair that comment did not hurt my feelings at all.  Even though those words didn’t hurt me it was the first time I had ever noticed that my thighs were bigger. I said all of that to say, that I can really envision my own body, femininity, and sexuality in her art.

I can’t find much information about Garza's upbringing and art online, but I remember my classmate saying that Garza is mixed race and she intentionally made figures racially ambiguous and curvy.