R R i c a r d o G a r c i a
About Art Stamping
Art Stamping is an innovative production practice created by Los Angeles Contemporary artist Ricardo Garcia. “Stamping” is the direct transfer of a formal object to the canvas. The direct physicality cancels out any intermediary medium resulting in a new honest, intimate and immediate art movement.
“I created stamping as a new way to use objects to make art. It is an expansion and transformation of ready-made, from placement context to contact application; aesthetic utility, ready to transfer.”
More established traditional transfer methods such as painting and photography make 2D representations of 3D objects by using conditional items and capturing techniques, i.e. brushes, paint, cameras, and software. Whereas “stamping” an object transfers its history and energy directly, giving birth to something new. The stamped object’s DNA is imprinted therefore reinventing itself as a conceptual visual narrative left up to interpretation.
I use mostly found objects from his neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles’ Produce Arts’ District. Shopping carts, parking meters and manhole covers have been procured in my process. Inspired by everyday items that are occasionally disregarded, Garcia, repurposes their original reason for conception. The stamped articles are reborn retelling the story from a new perspective.
Stamping exemplifies the current status of socio-economic plights impacting both globally and locally. Spanning from local issues such as neighborhood gentrification to global environmental issues, stamping is a direct reflection of a bigger picture.
“When I stamp, say a shopping cart on a canvas, utility and art collide, and that moment of impact creates a reaction, which actually is a birth - and utility transfers to aesthetic, immediately referencing itself, as a new object, I create and participate in this collaboration, yet in the moment of impact I detach, and I become the objective observer, letting it express itself.
The movement of transfer represents instant emancipation because I let the 3D objects I select make their own 2D representation of themselves. This emancipation allocation subtly to the stamped object and from it to the observer - a string of liberation is directly transferred.”