Latina Artist iliana emilia García Celebrates Memory, Traditions, and Identity

The New York City art scene has become more interesting and engaging as the city’s museums move toward greater inclusiveness. This Spring, the Guggenheim allotted its entire museum space–all six floors–to Rashid Johnson, one of America’s most prominent Black artists. The Whitney Museum of Art provided its largest exhibit space to Amy Sherald, known for her brilliant portrait of Michelle Obama.

iliana emilia García, Courtesy of the Pen and Brush Gallery. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

The Whitney’s new Latinx curator Marcela Guerrero also dedicated an entire floor to Shifting Landscapes. This show reinterprets the landscape genre moving beyond picturesque vistas to explore how political, ecological, and social issues shape artistic representation of the world. Guerrero is the DeMartini Family Curator (principal curator) at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, where she has become a leading figure in the field of Latino and Latin American art.

A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Guerrero holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a focus on the Caribbean. In 2025, she became the first Latina to co-direct the Whitney Biennial, the oldest and most prestigious contemporary art biennial in the United States. She has been with the Whitney since 2017 and has steadily risen through the ranks from assistant curator to associate curator, and now to her current senior role.

Luis Jimenez, [Snake] and Enrique Chagoya [bottom shelf]. Shifting Landscapes exhibit. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of Art. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

The Shifting Landscapes exhibit curated by Guerrero includes California artists Amalia Mesa-Bains, Laura Aguilar [1959-2018] Enrique Chagoya, Carlos Villa, Rafa Esparza, and Martinne Gutierrez. Texas artist Luis Jimenez [1940-2006] who lived in New York in the 1960s and Leslie Martinez who currently lives in McAllen, Texas represent the U.S. Borderland artists in the exhibit.

Amalia Mesa-Bains, Shifting Landscapes exhibit. Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of Art. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

New York City has some of the finest museums in the world and a sterling array of over 1,500 art galleries. These galleries are thriving in the post-pandemic era and are spread across many of the city’s boroughs. The best known or most frequented art galleries are in Chelsea, Tribeca, and the Lower East Side districts. The Pen and Brush Gallery in Flatiron, adjacent to the Chelsea District, is located in an historic neighborhood known for its vibrant art scene. The gallery, which was begun by a group of New York City women in1893, has a long-standing commitment to supporting women artists.

This Spring, the Pen and Brush Gallery featured the work of iliana emilia García [she prefers lower case for her name]. García, a Dominican-born, New York City-based visual artist and sculptor, is recognized for her large-scale paintings, installations, and printmaking. Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, García has built a significant career that bridges Caribbean heritage and contemporary art practices, with a focus on themes of memory, migration, and identity.

iliana emilia García next to her “Chair” installation. Courtesy of the Pen and Brush Gallery. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

At the Pen and Brush Gallery and at her studio in Brooklynn, García told Harriett and me about growing up in Santo Domingo in a family of poets, writers, and artists. She studied art from a young age and participated in international children’s art competitions. At the same time, she trained as a classical pianist, attending the National Conservatory of Music in Santo Domingo. She earned a degree from Altos de Chavón School of Design in the Dominican Republic, and graduated summa cum laude in 1989.

Soon after, Garcia emigrated to New York City and attended the Parsons School of Design, where she received a BFA in Communication Design in 1991. She also holds an MA in Biography & Memoir from CUNY Graduate Center. The Smithsonian American Art Museum book, Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, provided my initial introduction to García's work. Her photographic series in this Smithsonian publication titled “Unknown Distances/Undiscovered Islands” constructed a story of departure from her home country animated by two Dominican rustic chairs placed on a beach.

E. Carmen Ramos, editor, Our America, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Romo collection.

E. Carmen Ramos, editor of the beautiful Smithsonian book Our America, commented that throughout the history of art empty chairs have functioned as human surrogates and as a metaphor for comfort. Ramos suggested that García's chairs signify place and culture. At her Brooklynn studio, García explained her focus on the diaspora of the Caribbean as an “emotional condition of the heart.” The relationship between a nation and its dispersed people is always difficult, and García's chairs speak to nostalgia for a past long gone but a culture and place fondly remembered.

García’s art often explores collective and ancestral memory, emotional history, and intimacy, frequently referencing her Dominican heritage and experiences of migration. Her work also layers domestic materials, emotionally charged symbols, and personal iconography to create visual archives of migration, resilience, and legacy. Ramos pointed out that “García belongs to a thriving community of artists who have started to collectively explore the nature of Dominican American culture.”

Studio chair project, iliana emilia García. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

García uses the traditional Dominican chair as a central motif and a symbol of culture, craftsmanship, and the emotional history of objects. At the Pen and Brush Gallery, she pointed to a giant installation of 40 chairs hanging from the gallery ceiling tied together in the shape of a tree and discussed the application of a visual language through the repeated use of the chair. García explained that this simple Dominican chair serves as both anchor and storyteller. The chair becomes a recurring motif representing stability, ancestry, and the “emotional weight of what we carry.” Garcia's readymade sculptures and large installations express and explore memory, emotion, and tradition through the symbolic use of this everyday object.

We learned from the Pen and Brush curator and the artist that in Garcia's installations and paintings, “objects become vessels of remembrance–re-contextualized through the eye/heart of the beholder"—reminding us that “meaning is not fixed but formed through emotional and cultural intimacy.”

Studio space, iliana emilia García. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

We travelled with the García sisters from the Pen and Brush Gallery to lunch at their favorite pizza restaurant and then on to their studio in Brooklyn. I wrote about Scherezade Garcia last month, and Harriett and I were delighted to visit the studio space the sisters share. As the artists explained each art piece and talked about how each painting emerged, we learned more about their experiences and careers. The art we saw in illiana emilia García’s side of the studio included paintings, prints, and small models of potential installations. She is highly creative, and we expect that the works in progress will be in a prominent gallery or museum in the near future.

Publication, iliana emilia García: The Reason/The Object/The Word. Organization of American States, Washington, D.C. Romo Collection.

A beautiful 250 page book, iliana emilia García: The Reason/The Object/The Word, published by the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C., is a must read for anyone interested in learning more about life and art. García’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, El Museo del Barrio (NYC), The Blanton Museum of Art at UT Austin, Texas, and at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Santo Domingo.

The García studio in Brooklyn. iliana emilia García front and her sister Scherezade Garcia in black top. Photo by Ricardo Romo.