Carlos Garcia

Carlos Garcia is an accomplished artist – one of the old-timers, who began painting in 1974 when he was in his 20’s. He took art classes during the years that Padre Ernesto Cardenal was building his spiritual community in Solentiname. Classes were held in the small church which became the focus for the “liberation theology” of Padre Ernesto. This revolutionary theology had widespread spiritual, political and economic repercussions, not the least of which was initiation of the primitivist artistic style that would become synonymous with “Solentiname”.

During 1981 and 1982, Carlos Garcia was one of the artists who participated in the effort to paint the meaning of the Gospel, through painting scenes from the Gospel as if it had occurred in the islands of Solentiname. These paintings were gathered together as complementary parts of the famous “Gospel of Solentiname”, which records the collected commentaries of the peasants of Solentiname on the Gospel as it was celebrated in the spiritual community of Padre Ernesto during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Carlos Garcia’s paintings in this collection include “The Nativity” and “The Wise Men”.

Over three decades of creating his paintings, Carlos Garcia has used his imagination to paint the landscapes and countrysides of his native Solentiname islands. Not only has this career been spiritually rewarding, it has also been the best way to help himself and his family escape the poverty that plagued so much of Solentiname during the years of Somoza’s rule. The painting above is in my own collection, and shows a fisherman casting a net in the water while cows and a man in the nearby field look on.

Carlos Garcia’s work is also exhibited at the UPAS Art Gallery, and is featured in numerous magazines and books of primitivistic art of Solentiname.