John Garcia and I met in Los Angeles in 2019, when he invited me to a studio visit on his family’s property in Decker Canyon. The area had suffered great damage during the 2018 Woolsey Fire and on the property was a burned down sheep shed and a greenhouse left vacant. Knowing my history of exhibitions in unconventional space, he suggested I put a show together there. Beast On Its Back took place in 2020 just before Covid put the country in lockdown.
Later that Summer, I would include John’s text series pieces in an outdoor exhibition project on the LA River, titled From Dallas to Baum Bridge.
His ongoing text series is an homage to Ed Ruscha. It uses cityscapes in the literal sense, combining imagery of nature and the city with words and phrases from everyday language to communicate a particular urban experience
During a road trip from Los Angeles to New York, we took in the Fall of 2020, John made a number of pieces in this same series.
LAST KISS is written on The Gorge Bridge above the Rio Grande in New Mexico.
Infiniti Series 