Joe Ramiro Garcia: Optimist

JOE RAMIRO GARCIA OPTIMIST

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Joe Ramiro Garcia Optimist

October 28 - December 4.2016

LewAllenGalleries 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com cover: Paint Swatch, 2016, oil on canvas over panel, 17 x 15 in

Joe Ramiro Garcia Optimist The distinctive imagery and highly energetic palette of Joe Ramiro Garcia’s paintings and collages evoke a sense of the familiar through different modes of iconography, examining the deepest and most unusual remnants of our shared cultural memory.

A highly regarded artist with a strong printmaking background, Garcia juxtaposes Pop Art’s cultural iconography with an expressionistic, painterly aesthetic. An air of the familiar exists within the figurative elements of his painting; the wordplay associations, the blurriness of past recollection, even of late-night TV, his characters and cartoons sprung from both memory and the memorabilia of the past and the present. His technical approach relies on oils, brushes, scrapers, and a hand-applied lithographic technique that forms painted surfaces which operate in a middle ground between painting, lithograph, and collage.

Alternating between flat abstraction and a convincing trompe l’oeil, Garcia’s fragmented suggestions of space read like nimble imprints of the machinations of memory. With no attempt to emulate conventional notions of composition, these elements animate a space that seems at once recognizable and eerily enigmatic -- a tableau of discordant but vaguely familiar players depicting a mysterious, enticing whole.

While they lack an explicit narrative, Garcia’s pieces evoke a different type of logic; his reflections on sensation and paradox, mortality, joviality and nostalgia all add to the weight of his work.

Playing with the familiar and the extraordinary, with so-called childhood imagery in an “adult” context, Garcia obviously relishes disrupting hierarchies to get at the universal. The artist asserts, “I hope to displace the familiar just enough to encourage re-familiarization with the constant flux of urban experience.” By referencing both popular culture and private experiences,his psychologically resonant paintings navigate between the satisfaction of instant recognition and the riddle of a fantasy or elusive memory.

Born in Houston, Texas, Garcia attended Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts before studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was honored in 2005 with a Painters and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Exhibited in museums and private institutions internationally, his works are featured in several books on Southwestern art.

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Thinking of Painting, 2016, oil on panel, 24 x 24 in

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Fair Game, 2016, oil on canvas, 17 x 15 in

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Nobody Cares, 2016, oil on canvas, 17 x 19 in

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Ice House, 2016, oil on canvas, 30 x 22 in

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Check List, 2016, oil on canvas, 42 x 42 in

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St. Vincent, 2016, oil on canvas, 36 x 42 in

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Thicket, 2016, mixed media on board, 6 x 6 in

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Real World, 2016, mixed media on paper, 12 1/2 x 10 1/4 in

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Unfinished Business,2016, oil on canvas, 36 x 42 in

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Beauty Box, 2016, oil on canvas, 60 x 50 in

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Dark Beer, 2016, mixed media on board, 5 x 7 in

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Numbers Game, 2016, oil on canvas, 19 x 17 in

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More Energy, 2016, oil on canvas, 15 x 15 in

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That’s All, 2016, mixed media on paper, 8 x 14 1/2 in

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Holiday, 2016, mixed media on paper, 13 x 15 in

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Happy Ending, 2016, mixed media on paper, 14 1/2 x 9 in

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Return, 2016, oil on canvas, 15 x 15 in

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Salt, 2016, mixed media on board, 8 x 5 1/2 in

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Joe Ramiro Garcia b. 1966, Houston, TX EDUCATION 1985-86 School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL 1982-85 High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Houston, TX SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2016 Optimist, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM 2014 Transference, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM 2012 Look Into the Sun, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

But Seriously..., Blue Gallery, Kansas City, MO 2010 Urban Reconnaissance, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM 2008 Karaoke, LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2007 Pan American Art Projects, Dallas, TX 2006 True Grit, LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2005 Davis & Cline Galleries, Ashland, OR

Pan American Art Gallery, Dallas, TX

Cress Gallery, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, TN 2004 LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM

MainSite Contemporary Art, Norman, OK 2003 Handsel Gallery, Santa Fe, NM; also 1998-2002 2002 MainSite Contemporary Art, Norman, OK; also 1999-2001 2001 Sophia Georg Gallery, Denver, CO 2000 Sloane Jordan Gallery, Austin, TX 1999 Sophia Georg Gallery, Denver, CO 1995 Taos Mosaic Gallery, Taos, NM, also 1993

The Courtyard Collection, Los Angeles, CA SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2013 Visualizing a Presence, Heimbold Visual Arts Center,

Bronxville, NY

Summer Group Exhibition, LewAllen Contemporary Art,

Scottsdale, AZ 2009 Summer Group Exhibition, Scott White Contemporary,

San Diego, CA

Scope Basel, Pan American Art Projects, Basel, Switzerland

Group Exhibition, Pan American Art Projects, Dallas, TX 2008 Selected Works, Untitled Art Space, Oklahoma City, OK 2007 Deconstructions, Pan American Art Projects, Miami, FL

Check Out, Pan American Art Projects, Dallas, TX 2006 Artistas Contemporaneos del Rio Grande, Visual Arts

Gallery, Santa Fe Community College, Santa Fe, NM

Diptychs, LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM

2005 Incognito, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA

Interpreting the Sacred, Owings Dewey North, Santa Fe, NM

Small Works, LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2004 Modes and Methods, Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo, TX

Loose Ends, Second Street Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM 2003 Winter Show, Fresh Art Gallery, Denver, CO

Dog Head Stew, Institute of American Indian Arts Museum,

Santa Fe, NM; and Paul Mesaros Gallery, West Virginia

University, Morgantown, WV

The Show, Southwest Juried Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts,

Santa Fe, NM

Art in Embassies Program, Exhibition for the United States

Chief of Mission to Cuba, Havana, Cuba

Peace Show, Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, NM

First Impressions and the Comic Book, El Museo Cultural,

Santa Fe, NM

Monothon, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM; also 1997-2002 2002 Western States Small Works, Sonoma Museum of Visual Art,

Santa Rosa, CA

Rocky Mountain Biennial 2002, Museum of Contemporary

Art, Fort Collins, CO

Ravens in Winter, Guadalupe Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM

Postcard Love Notes to the Land, Munson Gallery, Santa Fe,

NM; also 2000-2001 2001 Site Unseen, James Kelly Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM

White Show, Handsel Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 2000 The Element Show, Helix Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM

Show Heart, Sophia Georg Gallery, Denver, CO

The American Landscape: A Contemporary Perspective,

MainSite Contemporary Art, Norman, Oklahoma

Millennium Show, Deloney Newkirk Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1998 Monotype Exhibition, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA 1997 Master Printer Invitational, Brian Marki Gallery, Portland, OR 1996 Art with Heart, Horwitch/LewAllen Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Arte Contemporaneo por Hispanos, Gallery Plaza Real,

Santa Fe, NM 1993-99 Contemporary Hispanic Market, Santa Fe Plaza, Santa Fe, NM 1993 Voyeur—A Show of the Erotic, Rod Goebel Gallery, Taos, NM 1992 Quincentennial Perspective: Artists Discover Columbus,

Castillo Cultural Center, New York, NY 1984 Surfaces III—Man Made Surfaces, Art League of Houston, TX 21

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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | tel 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | info@lewallengalleries.com Š 2016 LewAllen Contemporary LLC Artwork Š Joe Ramiro Garcia