Karla García
Artist

In Texas, the stark beauty of desert cacti and delicate prairie grasses become symbols of the human condition—a visual language that García employs to explore themes of resilience, locality, and the unruly nature of the unmanicured. Her sculptural works, crafted using traditional coil-building and pinching techniques, are distorted to create cacti that shrink and expand, surrounded by prairie grass. The colors, ranging from natural brown and black to light and dark blue-gray hues, evoke a grounding strength, the night sky, rain, and bodies of water.

While developing this series, García studied the flora of her Mexican heritage, the specificity of the Dallas prairie, and the beauty of weeds. She layers her installations with these elements, creating a dialogue between the plant life, herself, and the land. Accompanying the sculptures are new drawings made with clay slip, depicting various land conditions—dry and cracked, or muddy and fluid—that quietly reference her research, communicating a feeling of, rather than a translation of, the ever-changing landscape.

Distorted cacti sculptures, earthen colors, and clay slip drawings become a metaphor for the ever-changing world we inhabit—a reminder that even in times of unrest, there is beauty and strength to be found in the natural world. Through her work, García invites visitors to pause, to contemplate, and to find solace in the gentle, contemplative gestures that shape our environment

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Photography by Kevin Todora, courtesy of 12.26 Gallery.