His surprisingly unlikely mix of colors stunned and delighted his audiences. He sculpted with a passion. He enfolded the metaphysical science of plastic time values in his "Daylight" series, creating a perfectly calibrated, vibrant image of 24 hours with total precision, locked forever on canvas.
To celebrate his multidimensional Erotic Art Exhibit he covered naked bodies, including his own, with vibrant hues and thrust them against pure white sheets, leaving their imprints on a flowing, living surface.
The outpouring and quality of his work vaulted him to new levels of recognition in the South Florida art community. The Dade County Goverment commissioned him to create celebratory pieces for the opening of the Miami Art Museum Library Complex. He gathered enormous weather balloons, covered them with brightly colored symbols, set them aloft and anchored them to piles of material that explained the meaning of each "spheres". These spheres were to be added to and used each year. Tragically, typically, they have been destroyed.
He then created a vivid and complex neon fantasy piece, "Making Purple" for the Okeechobee Metro Rail Station. Two stories height shafts of neon combined red and blue; blending them to make purple - in a flowing, ever changing cycle. Through neglect and hurricanes, this too has been lost. "Peter Pan" clapped his hands when the Miami jazz musicians collectively were scornfully referred to as "Jazz Babies" by music critic from a local Miami magazine. The negatively charged criticism was transformed by Fernando into multi-colored batons, or bars. He deflected the slight by pointing at his delightful creations and calling them, not the musicians, the true Jazz Babies.
His later work was geometrically driven pieces, as he seemed to return to mathematical discipline. And, finally, as his eyesight failed and death approached, his last pieces were black dominated canvasses representing his final exit. We are told that they were not self-pitying exercises, but rather the result of his blindness. He was painting what he could see.
In 1989, Fernando Garcia died, sucked down by the cold and powerful currents of the black hole of AIDS, a gravity in our universe so strong that only a soft wail of mourning escapes.
This is not the end of our mystery however. The mysterious disappearance of Fernando Garcia has to do with the evaporation of his legacy, not his death. How can an artist like him not be celebrated and exalted less than 20 years after his passing? The answer to the mystery lies in the tragedy of the times. So many vital, creative souls were lost to the plague that the resulting pain reached a numbing level. The collective vision of the mourners was blurred by the endless tears. And memories of the disappeared great minds and talents were washed away in the flood.
Today, knowledgeable private collectors hold Fernando Garcia's works tightly in their grasp; knowing that the value of the pieces will grow exponentially over time. Those who knew, admired and supported Fernando Garcia are coming forward to share their memories, the art and their love. They seem to realize that now more than ever we need his artistic and joyful presence. With each arrival, his spirit rises again.
By Neil Myers
Carol Malt
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2008-10-22 12:41:28
Fernando's painting, "Miami's Choice," 1988, acrylic on canvas on wood, is being donated to the Pensacola Junior College Department of Art's permanent collection of Florida artists.
