Courtesy photos

WHO: Adriana M. Garcia, 31

MEDIUM: Paint, mainly acrylic

BEST KNOWN FOR: Bold, colorful portraits and murals using swirling brushstrokes. Garcia often paints women “who have a strong sense of self,” she said. “It's important for me to represent women in a very strong manner ..... dignifying them in a way that I see them every day.”

Garcia has also worked on community murals with San Anto Cultural Arts, beginning with “Líderes de La Comunidad” on Buena Vista Street. For that mural, she contributed images of her late uncle Rodolfo “Diamond” Garcia Jr., one of the founders of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, and her grandfather Rodolfo “Don Fito” Garcia, an original member of La Carpa Garcia traveling tent show.
In 2007, she was the lead artist on “Brighter Days,” a mural at the Center for Health Care Services on South Zarzamora Street about the fight against mental illness.

“With muralism, there's no commodification of art, it's for the masses. Art shouldn't just be in a gallery, it should be in the West Side of San Antonio as well,” Garcia said.

BACKGROUND: Born and raised on the West Side, Garcia graduated from Incarnate Word High School and received her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

PAYING THE BILLS: Garcia does freelance graphic design work for local nonprofits.

CHECK HER OUT: Garcia's work is part of the group show “Arte Latina: ROAR” at Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, which opens with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 3, and runs through June 8. She also has a painting of her grandfather in the group show “Aurat Kal, Aaj aur Kal” (“Women Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”) at Mandala Gallery through April 12. She will have one-woman show at Bihl Haus Arts in May.

Jessica Belasco | 210SA contributor