Karla García
2025 F.E.A.R.S Artist
October 23 - December 13, 2025
GOCA Project Space
Ent Center for the Arts
Karla García
Working primarily in clay, García creates sculptural installations that explore the symbolic and material connection between land, memory, and how they shape our understanding of place and self. Rooted in her Mexican heritage and myth, García’s forms often reference desert flora, resilient beings shaped by their environments. These forms are drawn from her family histories, philosophical inquiry, and the enduring presence of the natural world. García uses coil and pinch techniques to hand-build each piece, leaving visible traces of touch as a gesture of presence. Some works are fired, others left raw, inviting reflection on impermanence and transformation. Through these installations, García considers how we relate to the more-than-human world and the land we share.
Banner Image from “Shifting Ground”, 2024. Ceramic installation at 12.26 Gallery in Dallas, Texas. Gallery floor dimensions: 15.6 ft 9.75 ft x 22 ft. Photo by Kevin Todora
IMPORTANT DATES
Exhibition on View
October 23 - December 13, 2025
Opening Reception:
Thursday, October 23rd, 2025, 5-8 pm
GOCA Project Space | Ent Center for the Arts
*no registration required
VACS Lecture:
Thursday, October 23rd, 2025, 6-7 pm
Chapman Recital Hall | Ent Center for the Arts
*registration required, tickets available below
F.E.A.R.S. is an artist residency series founded in 2018 and co-hosted by UCCS VAPA and GOCA.
Gallery hours:
Thursday - Saturday, 1 - 6 pm, or by appointment
email: gallery@uccs.edu | call: 719.255.3504
photo by Melissa Gamez-Herrera
About
Karla García
Karla García (1977, Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico) is a Texas-based artist originally from Mexico. Her ceramic sculptural installations are rooted in her Mexican heritage and informed by personal and cultural memory, historical research, and philosophy. She explores the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative effects of the environment on the land we share.
García earned an MFA in Ceramics and a Certificate in Museum Education from the University of North Texas. She is a Sandhills Institute Artist Fellow in Nebraska and has exhibited in museums such as the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Old Jail Art Center in Texas, and a bi-national exhibition at the Chamizal National Memorial and the Museum of Archeology and History of El Chamizal on both sides of the Texas/Mexico border. Her recent projects include Grass Flower, a ceramic installation at Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin, TX, and a residency at the University of Colorado Springs.
Photos and Videos by Stellar Propeller Studio, Joshua Dorado, and Lynné Bowman Cravens , for the Galleries of Contemporary Art at UCCS, 2025