Joan Roberts Garcia

After drawing the largest tree, Oaxaca

At a showing of her squashes and other vegetals, 2023.

 
Biography

Life Thus Far
Joan was born in Dallas Texas.  At the age of 19 she boarded a bus to attend school in Mexico.  A year later she was forced to drop out and became a nanny and then taught english as a second language.  She stayed for 8 years, married and returned with her husband to Pennsylvania

Joan Roberts Garcia entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at the age of 27. She was pregnant with her first of two children. Thus began two inextricably intertwined, equally demanding and rewarding yet often conflicting roles: that of a serious artist and as a single mother.  

She was awarded a travelling scholarship upon graduation, which she took in Spain- three-year-old daughter in tow. The Moorish architecture excited and inspired years of abstractions in mixed media, that combined spatial and physical opposites in accumulations that forced the viewer to give up trying to focus on parts and experience their effect instead- much like what is seen in nature.  
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She moved to NYC from the Pojoaque area of New Mexico in the 90s- for her art.  There she continued making her art work, raising her children, and became involved in art education, splitting her time between the city and the wilderness of New Mexico.  Art production has continued, without stop, during all of her endeavors. In 2018 she purchased a little home in Placitas and in 2022 made the complete return.  She now makes art in her studio in Corrales, New Mexico. Her work can be seen by appointment. 

The Work
After years of comparing textures and patterns with natural materials and metal, showing natural layering and disintegration, Joan missed color and returned to oil painting. and two dimensional mixed media and painting.  A recurring theme is one of squashes and other organic forms, painted at dusk when they seem to disappear and become part of the darkness around them. Some of these paintings have titles that reveal themselves as self-portraits, such as, “Look What Happened to Cinderella” and “La Maternidad- perched”. The subject of redefinition that comes with later motherhood is also explored in “Once Upon a Time” a portrait of an empty rocking chair, springs exposed, caught in the shimmering light of dusk that bounces off its surface and her art studio around it.  She does not see a separation between the mixed media abstracts and more objective paintings as what she is exploring is a similarity of underlying formal qualities within diverse materials and subjects.  Subject matter is not important.  It is the form that counts.  

Space and geometry witnessed in landscapes are some current subjects Joan is exploring. She refers to some of these landscapes and nature-scapes as her "membrane paintings". Perhaps you can see why in Birch, and Turn in the Road, and very recently, Ojito.  Nature has always been the source of her inspiration, whether in the brambles. geological formations and trees she photographs, the subtle nuances of dusk light on organic forms, interiors, architectural and urban forms or in the natural process of tarnish in pieces such as Icon or Maine Winter.   

The production of Joan's art has continued, without stop, during all of her endeavors. In 2018 she purchased a little home in Placitas and in 2022 made the complete return back from New York City.  She now makes art in her studio in Corrales, New Mexico. Her work can be seen by appointment. 

A Note:
I mention motherhood because too often women artists do not.  We try to fit the "mold" which is of course impossible- and so we pale in comparison with men, whose work methods and lives the art world is more used to considering. We women often have another career- the care of children- which our male counterparts often do not.
I also mention it because my particular situation is highly unusual.  Single parents, (particularly those who are not supported) tend to give up art making for at least part of their lives.  I never considered that.  I always had a studio; I always worked on my art no matter what else I was doing to put food on the table.  Something had to go and it was the pursuit of exhibitions and galleries, for a while.  I assumed,that when I could address that I would have a strong body of work to show, which I feel I do.  I hope this shows my dedication to my art- its importance in my life.
ALL women should include their lives as women  as well as artists, in my opinion.


JOAN ROBERTS GARCIA

 

SOLO or TWO PERSON ART EXHIBITIONS
2023 One person exhibit, La Fonda del Bosque Gallery Hall, National Hispanic Cultural Center.  . 
2021- Presentation to CAS-  Contemporary Art Society, in studio at the Harwood Center, Albuquerque NM
2017. Photographs by Joan Roberts Garcia.  Chase, Abingdon Branch, NYC. 

2016.  At Dusk.  Westbeth Gallery.  NYC.  Two person show.
1999   Myung Sook Lee Gallery, Soho, New York

1991   Cloud Cliff Art Space, Santa Fe, NM

1986   Poe Ae Pi Gallery, Santa Fe NM

 
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022.  The Satchel Project.  Invited exhibit- result of NEA grant, curated by Sonja Horoshko. .                                            Cortez Community Center, Cortez Colorado. 

            The Museum of American Art, Philadelphia, PA.

1997     "Representation and Identity", Group Show, Macy Gallery,
            Teacher's College, Columbia   

            University, NYC.

1993     San Juan Community College, Farmington, New Mexico

1993     Juried Exhibition, The Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of
            the Fine Arts; in the Phillip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at
            Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA

1993     Spirit Arts, Santa Fe, in Collaboration with the Barber Shop
            Gallery, Taos.

1992     New Mexico Sculptor's Guild, St. John's University, Santa Fe, NM

1989     "New American Talent", Texas Art Association, Laguna Gloria
            Museum, Austin, Texas.  Juried by John Caldwell.

1984     Clifford Gallery, Dallas Texas

1980 and 1981: Juried Exhibition of the Fellowship of  PAFA, Philadelphia,
           PA.

 

2021 Selected presenter to members of CAS, Contemporary Art Society of NM, in Harwood Albuquerque Studio.  
2021. Finalist- The Gottlieb Individual Artist Support Grant. 
2018  Soaring Gardens Artist Residency; Ora Lerman Foundation, Penna.
2013- Finalist Gottlieb Foudation Individual Support Grant
2011   Grant- Artist's Fund Inc.

2004   Invited to present at the Second World Conference on Mulla
           Sadra; Tehran. Topic: "Form, Mimesis and the Metaphysical
           Stance as Evidenced in Islamic and Contemporary Western Art" 

2000   "The Embedded Iconography of Sigmar Polke" Chicago Art
          Journal, Spring 2000.

1997   (1) Jurors Award (2) Honorable Mention and (3) Touring Citation:
         "New American Talent", Laguna Gloria Museum; Austin Texas.    
          (Three different entries).

1986   Scholarship for Merit: School of Art, University of Washington,
          Seattle, Washington

1986    Poncho Scholarship; City of Seattle, Seattle, Washington

1981 from 1979: (The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts) Awards: 
          Henry Schiedt Travelling Scholarship '81, (taken in Spain and
          Portugal); Weiner Prize for Painting and Stauffer Prize for