The Saddest Place on Earth
Steven Psyllos
Last Gulp Publishing and Grand Central Press present The Saddest Place on Earth, a retrospective of the past five years of Camille Rose Garcia’s work. Her unique style uses luscious color compositions and a heavy lean on the narrative to really pack a punch. The characters she creates are Ed Gorey meets Warner Bros. meets retro-fairy tales, all floating within a grotesque world of death and beauty. The weathered look of her works lends a blur to reality, the layers of paint, a depth.
Garcia exhibited "Subterranean Death Clash" at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in April; her next show will be at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery in LA this November. My introduction to "Subterranean" is a must-mention. Absorbing the works, I slowly walked through the gallery and was almost knocked over by two girls running and playing. The girls were Swedish, I believe, probably sisters. The two adults were in the background, thoroughly examining the artistic quality of the paintings and huge squid installation–in their very serious, crossed-arm gallery pose–while the eldest sister tormented the little one with a haunting "Whoooooo…" ghost sound. The younger sibling tried to ignore it for as long as she could, but wound up crying to her grandma, begging her for help. The pleasure the older sister took in scaring the younger one was hilarious to watch, and really summed up the installation. Eerie yet beautiful, spooky yet playful.
As a little girl, she wanted to make cartoons and create her own theme park. As an adult, she creates fantastic worlds in which good and evil clash, and is starting her own toy company. How cool is that? Garcia is 35 years old.
SP: Did you always have a taste for the darker side…
CRG: The macabre? I think so. When the Munsters or the Addams Family came out, when I was a kid, I was really into that. Or those books, Flowers in the Attic, I’ve always had an affinity towards that type of thing.
SP: Your inclusion of sketches in the book allows one to see how many other layers go into your paintings. The characters are brilliant, but there’s so much more. Your usage of color, layer upon layer…
CRG: They really are a process, even though I sometimes plan out characters or color themes. Working on the actual paintings, it’s much more of an intuitive, spontaneous process. I’ve tried to do a more elaborate sketch of what it’s going to be, but it always changes.
SP: There seems to be a story behind each of the pieces.
CRG: Yeah, each series pretty much has a theme or a concept.
SP: Where does that concept stem from?
CRG: Usually it starts from reading the paper or watching the news and there’ll be one little story that catches my eye. Or maybe events in my life. "Subterranean Death Clash" really started with–our dog died, we had him for 12 years. I’ve had friends die but it was the first time I watched something die. Watched the soul leave, and really wondered about that. It brings to mind as well, the US military and all the bombing that we do all over the world, this mass-killing that we never ever see. Attached to each of those deaths is a family. They’re experiencing these lost souls as well. It got me to thinking about where all that energy goes. That was the big catalyst for the show. Also, the idea of the earth being taken over, the soul being sucked out by capitalism.
There are these horrible capitalists that are killing everything, which is a veiled symbol for the military. At some point they’re going to encounter all the souls that they’ve taken. I like this idea of this subterranean world where these souls all live–and it’s this beautiful amazing place–and they have to battle at some point.
The ideas come from different places, but usually in the execution, I’m really inspired by William Burroughs and his cut-up writings, and the act of deconstructing something, making it non-linear. It adds another dimension to it, like how you have dreams and they don’t really make sense but there all these bits that kinda make sense.
SP: Are your narratives always so epic?
CRG: This one was really the most epic, because it was dealing with death straight on. But that’s always the big challenge for me, how do I deal with these really loaded subjects in a way that’s not depressing. It still ultimately has to be inspiring. To me, there are beautiful layers to this world we live in, but there are also all these horrifying layers that hide that. I’m always trying to bring that back to the surface. There’s this magic and this beauty that happens everyday that you have to look for.
At this point, I tell Camille about my experience with the two little girls at the Jonathan LeVine gallery and we both laugh.
CRG: I love it when kids are engaged by the work. To me they’re the ultimate critic. If they’re bored, that means it’s probably boring. I’m always trying to get back into my five year-old mind. It’s like, "there’s all this horrible depressing stuff going on but I’m going to make a universe and there’s going to be a princess…"
I think you have to get back to that state of mind to remain happy throughout your life.
SP: What was the process of putting together the book?
CRG: I always wanted to do a book but I was always too busy and too crazy. It was five years worth of work and all the things kind of relate. But I could already do another book.
SP: What attracts you to narrative work?
CRG: In art school, to put narratives in your fine art work was really considered [off-limits], you weren’t supposed to do that. That was illustration. You don’t want to put text in your painting, or a story. But a lot of the stuff that I liked was narrative: cartoons, comic books, children’s books. And I write all the time too, so finally I realized that that’s just silly. I’m a narrative kind of artist. I make narratives, I make stories.
SP: Do you present the story alongside your work?
CRG: That’s always a hard one. I write it out for the press release, but the press release isn’t necessarily hung on the wall. I have a hard time figuring out how to present it, that’s why I always present the pre-sketches and my ideas in written form. There isn’t a storyline that runs under the paintings but I do want people to know what I was thinking about. But they might just get that from the images too, or get something else, so I don’t know if it ruins it.
I also do more narrative format stuff in books. I have a kid’s book coming out soon.
