Fear Not
(Artist’s note: Fear Not was completed on November 8th, 2016 … Election night,  hmmmm…)

Not only is Leo Garcia an acclaimed visual artist, but as a filmmaker, he produced the independent full length feature Excess Flesh, a psychological thriller with tones of body horror: “a modern day Los Angeles. the entrapment of dreams. the prison of self. a la Polanski, Zulawski, von Trier.” Excess Flesh premiered at SXSW on Friday, March 13, 2015.  Theatrically, Excess Flesh was released for a one-week Limited Engagement in Los Angeles in October, 2105. The film is distributed by Midnight Releasing and is available on VOD/DVD on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play and others.

Leo also produced ten minutes is two hours, a short-form documentary video shot in South Sudan. ten minutes is two hours is both a work of and a commentary on cultural exploitation. It is a self-consciously “cinematic” re-creation of a journey through a land plagued by the ghosts of colonialism and the present anxiety of conflicting religious and political agendas – both of which can often seem one and the same. Evoking a surreal sense of place, both very present and very distant, the video depicts the hazy lines between notions of “foreign aid” “missionary practice” and “colonialism,” and shows the ways history has of recycling itself. The essayistic, experimental nature of the work is inspired by the politically charged silent-era montage of Dovzhenko, Vertov, and Eisenstein and the later impressionistic film and video works of Marker and Godard.

TribeLA Magazine Acrostic Interview.1

Tagline: Give yourself and your work a tagline and tell us why.
“Don’t forget.” It’s too easy to forget. Don’t.

Rest: How do you spend your time off?
I am endlessly interested in my life at home. It is my refuge and there is no place I’d rather be.

Influence: What would you like to share with our audience and what effect do you hope to have on us?
My work is Influenced by the didactic of agitprop and inspired by the optimism of naiveté. Truth and beauty abide, appropriation is transparent, and the collective unconscious is where I access that which is greater than myself.