319 AIR – Grizzly Grizzly Artist-in-Residence / June 4 – July 2, 2021

Lucia Garzón

Grizzly Grizzly is pleased to announce our fifth 319 AIR resident, Philadelphia-based artist Lucia Garzón. During her month-long residency in our exhibition space, Garzón will develop a new series of experimental video-based performance work. Upon completion of the residency, Garzón will share the resulting work through a series of short videos presented through social media.

Lucia Garzón is an interdisciplinary artist who creates work about her family and how that connects to larger ideas of immigration, class, and labor. Her current work focuses on honoring and giving voice to the history and sacrifice made by the artist’s first-generation Italian mother and Colombian father, who immigrated to the United States. Through thoughtful investigation, Garzón draws correlation between her artistic labor and the physical labor that is intrinsic to her family’s identity. Garzón states that the repetitive hands-on work that she employs in her artwork “directly relates to my family’s occupations as woodworkers, chefs, and janitors. It is important for me to make accessible work that expresses familial notions of love, struggle, and sacrifice." The resulting work is a celebration of this shared history, which seeks to honor the labors of a family and illuminate connections with Garzón’s identity today.

About 319 AIR: Since January 2021, the five artist-run galleries on the 319 Building’s 2nd floor are hosting artist residencies in their spaces. The pandemic has made it difficult to safely present exhibitions in our spaces, and, at the same time, many artists have been displaced from their studios due to the pandemic’s economic effects. In a time of isolation, we hope that making these spaces available offers inspiration and opportunity to realize new work, ideas, and (virtual) connections.

2020/21 Grizzly Grizzly programming and residencies are supported by Added Velocity which is administered by Temple Contemporary at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University and funded by the William Penn Foundation.

Artist Bio

Lucia Garzón is an interdisciplinary artist working in a range of different media including wood, textiles, print, and video. Garzón graduated from Tyler School of Art in 2018 with a BFA in printmaking. The main themes in her work focus on the immigrant values and various cultures that she was raised with and currently occupy. Garzón’s work has been exhibited in numerous group shows in the Philadelphia area. In 2019 she was awarded the Joseph Roberts Foundation grant and a solo show at Da Vinci Art Alliance (Philadelphia). Garzón has been an apprentice at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, a fellow at Soap Box Print shop, and will be attending Acre Residency in summer 2021.

Janitors Cart, wooden trash can, broom, and caution sign, 43min video, sound, 2019 (left)
No Keeper, wood, screen printed fabric and fringe, 2020 (right)