“Neon, more properly luminous tube, has been my medium of expression for nearly a decade. It has replaced the paint and sculptural materials I used as a student. I’m ever mindful of the compelling nature of this pure, colored, glowing light and the tendency of many to see “all things neon” as signage or kitsch.”
My Alien Abduction is Garcia’s pursuit to recover that which was taken from him … from a culture and a people. He does this through the manipulation of a digital program that in and of itself is a device of appropriation.
“I see painting as a self-correcting, continually revising endeavor, sometimes expanding or contracting, depending on who’s looking and when, and maybe an enterprise forever tied to experience.”
We get a little queasy thinking that while hanging the show, we may find some art complimenting each other by happy accident, or be stuck in a retina-straining house of horrors full of art pieces abstractly at war. Either way, we like the tension of the merry-go-round of possibilities.
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…
If the myth of power is in part sustained by taking, or “abducting” (appropriating) what is owned by someone else and then making it your own and claiming it, then Garcia’s pantheon literally apes a hierarchical power structure that is human in invention. –Clayton Campbell
