Rafael Garcia
Interview with the Painter of the Month: Rafael Garcia. A.R.T. has worked with Rafael, a Trenton New Jersey native, since he was sixteen years old. Now twenty-three, Rafael's work has been shown at art museums and most recently his painting 'Rags to Riches' was featured on the Dish network TV show Arts and Healing Gallery.
TL: Your paintings take a really long time.
Rafael: Yes.
TL: Over these years working with A.R.T. you've made less paintings than the other artists.
Rafael: Yes, I can count them all. There was the basketball player, with the crazy background.
TL: You mean the one you created by bouncing a rubber ball loaded with paint?
Rafael: Yeah, that wasn't the first one. It was the futuristic city..
TL: How did you create that background, that sky, that freaked everyone out when the painting was shown? It didn't look like paint. It looked like shimmering metal or something. Very cool.
Rafael: It's just simple. It was a continuation of washes of different colors. That's how I got it that way.
TL: And that 'El Foto de Hombre', that 'Picture of My man', that portrait you did of me?
Rafael: Yeah.
TL: You told me to sit real close, so you could study my face. Then you tell me, "You know you got wrinkles round your eyes?"
"I do?" I ask.
"Yeah. But don't worry”, you say, “I'll put them in later.”
Rafael: 'laughs’- I remember that.
Rafael: Then there was the boxing painting.
 TL: Let's talk about that.
Rafael: I know it caused a controversy, and that people didn't like it.
TL: This doctor you had said he wanted a painting of yours, a commission, that you would paint him, holding this syringe, you sitting on an examination table.
Rafael: Yeah. It was basically what I went through once with a doctor.
TL: That's why you painted boxing gloves on your hands?
Rafael: This doctor putting all sorts of needles in me, trying to get blood off me.
TL: So does that explain the boxing gloves?
Rafael: Yes.
TL: Like you were pissed off?
Rafael: Yes.
TL: So where did the controversy come in?
Rafael: My teachers thought it was drug related. That's what they thought.
TL: And so they kicked A.R.T. out of the school.
Rafael: -breathes out- - Yeah.
TL: --laughter-
Rafael: That's basically what it was. They never came to me and asked me what it was about.
TL: And they never came to us and asked what it was about. And what painting was after that, once you were out of school and working with us at our Princeton University studio program?
Rafael: There was Scarface.
TL: Let me touch on a story with Scarface. First of all it was very interesting how people started noticing that the face was starting to look like you.
Rafael: It was actually by mistake. I was trying to think of what he looked like, but it ended up looking like me. I don't know how it happened. We didn't have any mirrors or such. I don't know how it came out to look like me because we didn't have nothing. Didn't have any pictures. We didn't have anything to let you know what I looked like. So, I don't know how it came out that way.
TL: So, do you remember when I told you that lady would buy it if you would change the cocktail...
Rafael: Yes, that pissed me off.
TL: -laughter- For the readers, this lady called, saying she wanted to buy the painting for big dollars, if Rafael would change Scarface's martini into a Pepsi.
Rafael: Yeah. That disappointed me.
 TL: So I called you to tell you what she said and what'd you say?
Rafael: I said 'no'. Because you can't ask an artist to change something he already put on the painting. That's beside the point. If you don't like it the way it is? Then don't buy it.
TL: -laughter- So, you're on the cover of the award-winning book Flying Colors?
Rafael: Yeah.
TL: You remember what your brother Jesus said about what it looked like?
Rafael: He said it looked like I was in a tornado.
TL: Is it true someone stole your wheelchair?
Rafael: It's not a front, it's truly true.
TL: So what happened?
Rafael: I was living with my mom at the time. And one day I woke up in the morning, seven-thirty in the morning, I came outside, and my chair wasn't there. Taken from right out front of my house.
TL: And what happened after that?
Rafael: Then after that, ah, I didn't want to involve the news people, but my school encouraged me to contact the news people, so I did. And then they did like five interviews, and put me on Prime Time, I'd say, fifteen to thirty seconds? And then someone from upstate New Jersey, donated me a chair.
TL: Cool. You remember meeting the Governor?
Rafael: Basically what I remember is basically he got my name wrong. That's all I remember. Shaking his hand. He asked me my name and I told him my name and he said it wrong, so I just left it like that.
TL: -laughter- Can you tell a non-painter about your new painting, the tree painting? I know it's not finished but can you explain where you're coming from in this painting?
Rafael: Yeah, I can explain the painting. It's very simple, for me. It might be complicated for other people, but I have a certain way I like to do things. In the beginning of the process I like to do free-lance. Then work my way up to something better. I like to take my time.
TL: Darren, the Top Tracker at Princeton University A.R.T. says it’s not your normal tree, that it’s really advanced, that it's got all this spatial stuff going on, that it's not your normal tree?
Rafael: Yeah, it's sort of like, ah, abstract things. With a little bit of modern elements, added to it. I wish I could show you, but I think I have a good idea of how to show you one day. This guy that my dad works for? He can laser cut a photo of a painting. So you can feel it with your hands. And that would give you a good idea to actually see my painting.
TL: That would be cool. The tree painting's not finished, right?
Rafael, Nah, it's not finished.
TL: Does it have a title yet?
Rafael: Yes, it's got a title. 'The Tree'.
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