Caricatures

The artist

My name is Antonio F. García; I am a first generation Cuban-American born in Miami, Florida in 1965. In 1988 I earned a B.A. in Fine Arts from UCLA, and kept alive the teachings of my most influential drawing mentors (Les Biller, Roger Herman, and Patty Wickman) by making pictures regularly, mostly in sketchbooks. Rigorous pursuit of performance art and conceptual art guided by what I learned from Paul McCarthy, as well as a passion for field geology, led to me being hired in Fall 2001 as a geology professor in the Physics Department at Cal Poly State University. 

In Summer 2013 the artist Guillermo Willie gifted me canvases and oil paints, which led to some summer painting.

In February of 2018 the work of Artist Trever Carter and the songwriting of Physicist Thomas Gutierrez inspired more oil painting and ultimately, uninterrupted ongoing picture production. In 2021 I stopped oil painting and instead made drawings in black ink and white ink on 18 inch by 24 inch paper. This medium facilitates balancing the complexity of being a Professor of Geology with the relative simplicity of ink drawings. The necessity to depict a "...technicolor motorhome..." in an illustration of Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne" pulled me back to color. Now all my drawings are made in either in black ink and white ink, or color ink, or but mostly they are made in black ink and white ink.

The drawings

According to Merriam Webster.com., a caricature is a picture wherein exaggeration in most instances achieved by distortion of parts or characteristics, and a comic strip is a group of caricatures in narrative sequence.

My drawings are caricatures of life experiences and comprise a comic strip. I am fortunate to be a Professor of Geology because this position provides outstanding material for such an approach to picture production. Moreover, I am a geomorphologist; geomorphology is the study, from a geological perspective, of factors that influence landscape evolution.

I study and teach erosional and constructive landscape-sculpting processes, so movements and spaces are fundamental to the landscape caricatures I draw. In most instances these landscapes are interpretations of the mountainous terrain of Central Coast Ranges of California where I conduct research and teach.

Other drawings are about what I do and what I think about. Some drawings are about cycling, and some drawings illustrate songs. Other drawings are political. Some of the pieces are deeply personal. When needed, I make drawings of Rokki, my Siberian-Husky muse.

 To contact the me please send email to afgdrawings@gmail.com or afgarcia@calpoly.edu