Ektor Garcia
Bio: (b.1985 / Red Bluff, CA) is a child of migrant farm workers. He has lived and traveled frequently between California and Mexico. Ektor received his BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Fiber and Material Studies in 2014. A solo show was presented at Touché, a gay leather bar in Chicago. He lives and works in New York City.
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: Xipe Totec was a major god in ancient Mesoamerican culture important for the
Toltecs and Aztecs. A symbol of the new vegetation, Xipe Totec wore the skin of a human victim—the “new skin” that covered the Earth in the spring. During
the corn-planting festival, Xipe Totec was worshipped by a priest who, dressed in the skin of a flayed victim, ritually enacted the death-and-renewal cycle of the earth. Xipe Totec was the divine embodiment of life emerging from the dead land and of the new plant sprouting from the seed.
This sculpture has haunted me since the first time I saw it in Mexico. Since then I keep bumping into it in various cities.
I am always learning something new from it.
I was struck by the flayed skin, how it was attached over the god’s
skin, intricately sewn or beautifully tied, grotesque yet beautiful, violent
and elegant.
Covering, hiding, protecting.
These sculptures reflect a lot of what I perceive to be happening now in Mexico, the U.S. and around the globe.
Skin, textile, garment, raced, objectified, classified, severed, sewn, discarded, consumed, looted, punished, fetishized, enslaved.
When making work I create something out of re-purposed, refashioned
materials.
Patina, skin, and feel are things on my mind and in my hands.
Textiles and leather fascinate me, ancient Mexican craft and folk traditions
fill me with excitement and inspiration.
I look in the eyes of this sculpture and see another pair underneath looking
right back at me, silently communicating.
L to R: Keramiks in Studio (Dimensions variable, Glazed ceramics, 2016); Strange Fruit Doily (6˝diameter, Crochet horsehair from deceased horse, 2012)