User:Roserey/sandbox

Gabriel Garcia Roman (birthday tba) is a Mexican-American photo based artist who was born in Zacatecas, Mexico. Roman resides in New York where he is known for this Queer Icons, QTPoC (Queer Trans People of Color) art series. Roman is always looking to push the flatness that photography represents by weaving and integrating many styles into his work to combat and push photography. Roman pushes the traditional Renaissance religious art form allowing for the LGBTQ community to have a spotlight in a means in which they would not have.

Early Life[edit]
Gabriel Garcia Roman was born in Zacatecas, Mexico. At only two years old Roman and his family decided to move to the United States. Roman’s family came to the United States with very little and forced him to be creative and make do with what he had. Roman states that this is where the building blocks of his artistic path started. Roman was raised in Chicago and while growing up in the 80’s surrounded by homophobic banter that influenced him to be in the closet till the age of 19. This had an immense impact on his art career. At the age of 33 Roman decided to go to City College of New York where he received a Bachelors of Arts in Studio Art. As of today we can see the strides he has taken to impact the community with LGBTQ art.

Queer Icons, QTPoC[edit]
Roman grew up Catholic and was influenced by the painting and murals of the saints depicted in the cathedrals. These pieces had a strong connection with Roman and saw inspiration with them. Roman combined this with his beliefs in the LGBTQ community in which he states they are the modern day saints. His inspiration and the subjects he is drawn too speak highly of the diversity he brings to this series. This series caught many eyes and was highlighted in many news outlets like the National Public Radiio (NPR) and The Huntington Post which sent a new wave of new found diversity in these saint like portraits.

Inspiration[edit]
In this series you can see the inspiration from the works itself as one of the most notable aspects are the halo like accents in most of the portraits. The form in which each person takes in looking outward in various positions, colors, and depth in which these people are portrayed further exemplify not only the saints but the portrait styles. Roman was inspired by the portrait styles from Renaissance and Christian Orthodox painting. Some notable inspirations for Roman are Renaissance artist like Jan Van Eyck, Roger Van Dear Weyden, and Albrecht Durer.

Subjects[edit]
Roman started to use friends and close acquaintances to use as the main focus in his art. As Roman entered this field, more subjects came to light through the means of social media like tumblr and instagram. The QTPoC community is very well connected so finding subjects was not much of a challenge. Roman ask’s the subjects to wear something regal and empowering to their sense of self which adds to the power of the art. His subjects are usually excluded from religious communities and yet here in his art they are depicted in a religious way that gives them the representation much needed.

The Portraits
Immediately as you see these portraits you are drawn by the unique textures and powerful glances the subject convey in the Renaissance like portraits. Many of these just entail one person but some have duos/couples and LGBTQ families. Each portrait comes with a description of the subject in what they identify as and the many hats they wear in society. Furthermore, some portrait’s description adds their educational level which helps with the representational aspect of the queer community in how they impact the world themselves within their study. In this series the portraits are surrounded by text chosen by the subject with words they identify with and empower them. This adds to the empowerment of the subject as they get to decided what they are labeled as and not society which is the opposite of what the last had done to the LGBTQ community.

Ericka
In a portrait named Ericka by Garcia Roman you can see the the inspirations from the saints and Renaissance art. With the halo to the head of the subject, the hand gestures reaching up their body and down, and the colorful texture scheme as many saints are associated with certain colors. The shirtless aspect of this subjects gives an even more impactful message as in the bio it states they are a survivor of breast cancer. The words surrounding the subject read “survivor of anti-blackish, racism, breast cancer, death of a parent and much more. The impact here is that the subject chose these words for themselves a truly powerful aspect.

Defining You
Another series by Gabriel Garcia Roman that was inspired by his therapy journey. The revisitation of his childhood memories and the challenged that the Mexican culture has in sharing deep and personal feelings with a stranger showed itself through the therapy session for Roman. Roman decided to use subjects close to him and the portraits you can see the textures are quite unique as it seems fabric is weaved into them for texture. You can see there is a central subject presented which is the subject themselves but between the weaved texture there are images presented behind the subject which are photos of their childhood. Each texture is truly unique as Roman wants it to resemble DNA which is unique to each owner, not one is the same.

Lola
With the portrait Lola you can see the main subject Lola is the main focus, however the texture behind the subject creates this wall which both associates the subject and disassociates them at the same time with the background. The wall also signifies as a dialogue division between present and past which is how Roman described therapy. The background are pictures of the childhood of the main subject from baby pictures to childhood ones. The texture is unique to this portraits which exemplify the individual.