Matthew Garcia
Semifinalist

Matthew Willie Garcia (born Tulare, CA; lives Iowa City, IA) has a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, MO, and an MFA from the University of Kansas, Lawrence. Garcia has shown work at the Des Moines Art Center, IA; Bradbury Art Museum, Jonesboro, AR; and Nerman Contemporary Museum of Art, Overland Park, KS; as well as at the London Print Fair, UK; Inheritance & Innovation: Mokuhanga & Washi, Exhizen and Sumi Fusion Mokuhanga, Nara, both Japan; and On Paper, Barcelona, Spain. Garcia was a resident at Mi-LAB, Mokuhang Innovation Laboratory in 2022, and is the 2024/2025 Grant Wood Fellow at the University of Iowa.

Statement from the Artist:
Matthew Willie Garcia is a printmaker whose work moves beyond traditional print media to comprise screenprinting, mokuhanga, projection-mapping, animation and large-scale installation. Driven by a passion for both science and science fiction, Garcia explores his queer identity and the mysteries that lie within the vast universe. Garcia employs his knowledge of printmaking to explore these themes through color abstraction, the graphic image and nonrepresentational forms.

matthewwilliegarcia.com
@matthewwilliegarcia