"Carmen Lomas Garza: Picturing Familiar": ASU Art Museum presents ﬁrst major retrospective of artist Carmen Lomas Garza

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Apr 02, 2026, 11:00 ET

TEMPE, Ariz., April 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The ASU Art Museum presents "Carmen Lomas Garza: Picturing the Familiar," the ﬁrst major retrospective of the pioneering Mexican American artist in more than two decades. Born in Kingsville, Texas, Carmen Lomas Garza is an artist, educator and illustrator whose depictions of everyday Mexican American life have become deeply embedded in the cultural imagination across generations. Her work has profoundly shaped how Mexican American histories, traditions and values are seen, remembered and passed down. Visitors can see ﬁrsthand more than 50 years of artistic production at the exhibition, which opens May 2, 2026 and runs through September 10, 2026. This exhibition is organized by Senior Curator Alana Hernandez, with Latinx Curatorial Fellow Natalie Solis.

Carmen Lomas Garza, Abuelitos Pizcando Nopalitos (Grandparents Cutting Cactus), 1980. Collection of Amalia Mesa-Bains and Richard L. Bains.

Garza's work oﬀers a powerful and enduring reminder: To picture oneself is to preserve history and to imagine a shared future. Tracing her artistic journey, from Kingsville, Texas to San Francisco, California, "Picturing the Familiar" brings for the ﬁrst time to public view a mixture of paintings, works on paper, public art and archival materials alongside works by her longtime counterparts, including Santa Barraza, César A. Martínez, Amalia Mesa-Bains and Ester Hernandez. The exhibition positions Garza as a visionary documentarian of lived experience.

"We're often taught the histories of this country — and of movements like the Chicano Movement— as if they were monolithic. Carmen's work reminds us otherwise," said Hernandez. "Her vision illuminates distinct stories of South Texas and Mexican American life, revealing that there are many movements, many experiences. What she creates is deeply speciﬁc yet carries a universal resonance. Importantly, these narratives –– rooted and embedded in the cultural fabric of this country –– challenge and expand upon our understanding of what we see and know as 'American art'."

Organized across several sections, the exhibition examines the early years in South Texas, grounding Garza's work in the social and political energy of the 1960s and 1970s and her participation in El Movimiento through groups such as MAYO and Los Quemados. Early works and archival materials reveal how art functioned as an extension of community organizing, cultural sovereignty and lived experience shaped by region and language within the broader Chicano Movement. From there, the exhibition moves into Garza's exploration of healing and ritual, where scenes of curanderismo, devotional practices and everyday care connect spirituality, family and ancestral knowledge as sources of cultural resilience. The narrative follows Garza's relocation to the Bay Area and her involvement with Galería de la Raza between 1976 and 1981, a period in which her visual language expanded alongside a growing commitment to cultural representation, education and grassroots Chicana/o/x artistic networks.

"Her art transcends time and place, oﬀering lessons in memory and belonging that resonate across generations," said ASU Art Museum Director Miki Garcia. "This retrospective aﬃrms our commitment to artists whose work is deeply connected to community, history and collective imagination, and to the ways art can carry memory forward while shaping more inclusive futures."

Following its presentation at the ASU Art Museum, "Carmen Lomas Garza: Picturing the Familiar" will tour nationally, with conﬁrmed stops at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture and the El Paso Museum of Art, among others, forthcoming.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalogue published by the ASU Art Museum, distributed by the University of Texas Press and edited by Hernandez. The volume features several new scholarly contributions that investigate how Garza's depictions of everyday Mexican American life function as both cultural aﬃrmation and political resistance.

The richly illustrated publication features a director's foreword, a selected chronology and new essays by Hernandez, Claudia E. Zapata, Deanna Ledezma, JoAnna Reyes and Natalie Solis, marking a renewed scholarly engagement with Garza's expansive career.

Extending the exhibition beyond the gallery, the museum will oﬀer a robust slate of public programs from May through August 2026, including ﬁlm screenings, guided museum tours and community-centered engagements developed in collaboration with ASU's School of Transborder Studies and the College of Health Solutions. Together, these initiatives create multiple entry points for participation, inviting audiences across campus and the wider community to engage with the exhibition's themes through dialogue, shared experience and collective learning.

Exhibition Overview: "Carmen Lomas Garza: Picturing Familiar"

"Carmen Lomas Garza: Picturing the Familiar" is the ﬁrst major exhibition devoted to artist, activist and educator Carmen Lomas Garza (b. 1948) since 2001. Bringing fresh insight to her expansive career, the exhibition follows Garza's work across drawing, painting, installation and sculpture. It also situates her practice within a broader cultural landscape, featuring works by contemporaries who collaborated with or inﬂuenced her at pivotal moments. Organized chronologically and shaped by thematic groupings, the exhibition traces Garza's artistic evolution from the 1960s through the mid-2000s. By presenting her work alongside that of her peers, "Picturing the Familiar" illuminates shared aesthetics, recurring themes and the rich artistic networks that deﬁned this period.

"Carmen Lomas Garza: Picturing the Familiar" is organized by ASU Art Museum Senior Curator Alana Hernandez, with ASU Art Museum Latinx Curatorial Fellow Natalie Solis. Major support is provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Teiger Foundation. Generous funding is provided by the Institute for Museum and Library Sciences and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support is provided by The Airoldi-Huﬀman Family Foundation and the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with a Community of Practice composed of Rene Andrade, Chef; Susan Bauer, M.Ed, NBCT; Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz, Curandera; and Dr. Sonia Vega-López, Professor in Nutrition and Assistant Dean of Inclusive Excellence in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University.

About the ASU Art Museum

Arizona State University Art Museum advances a bold vision for what a museum can be in the 21st century: a people-powered cultural engine that centers art and artists in the service of community wellbeing, civic imagination and social good. We believe creativity is a human right; that access to art must be inclusive, relational and responsive; and that museums are essential civic infrastructures where people of all backgrounds build empathy, belonging and shared meaning.

As a museum embedded within a major public research university—situated on the ancestral homelands of the Akimel O'odham (Pima) and Pee Posh (Maricopa) peoples—ASU Art Museum positions art as a catalyst for ethical imagination and societal flourishing. We cultivate spaces where people can see themselves reflected, learn across difference and participate in shaping a more just and imaginative future.

Housed in a 49,700-square-foot landmark building designed by Antoine Predock, ASU Art Museum serves as both a cultural anchor and an experimental laboratory for innovation. The museum's tagline—"Arte para todos / Art for All"—reflects its full commitment to accessibility: ASU Art Museum charges no admission and offers 100% of its programs free of charge.

The ASU Art Museum is an integral part of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. For more information about the ASU Art Museum, visit asuartmuseum.org.

Free Public Programs
A series of free in-person and virtual public programs will be oﬀered in conjunction with Sixties Surreal. More information about these programs and how to register will be available on the Museum's website as details are conﬁrmed.

Press Preview
The ASU Art Museum will host a press preview. Please reach out to [email protected] if you are interested in attending the press preview.
For media interviews and inquiries, please reach out to Lindsay Hansen at [email protected] .

CheckList | Lead Images + Captioning

Catalogue
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue featuring an introductory essay written by Hernandez, four additional essays related to the exhibition's themes, and a selected chronology authored by Alana Hernandez, Senior Curator.

Publication Author and Editor Information
Edited by: Alana Hernandez, Senior Curator, ASU Art Museum Contributors Include:

Dr. Claudia Zapata – Curator and art historian. Their research interests include curatorial methodologies of identity-based exhibitions, Chicanx and Latinx art, digital humanities, BIPOC zines, and designer toys
Dr. Deanna Ledezma – Historian of photography and U.S.-Mexico border visual culture
Dr. JoAnna Reyes – Specialist in visual and material culture of colonial Mexico and contemporary Chicana/o America
Natalie Solis – Latinx Curatorial Fellow, ASU Art Museum focused on Chicana/o/x diasporic movements
Alana Hernandez – Senior Curator, ASU Art Museum focused on U.S. Latinx art and art from Latin America in the modern and contemporary periods.
Foreword by: Miki Garcia, Director, ASU Art Museum

Image Captioning

Carmen Lomas Garza, Abuelitos Pizcando Nopalitos (Grandparents Cutting Cactus), 1980. Gouache on cotton paper, 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm). Collection of Amalia Mesa-Bains and Richard L. Bains. Courtesy Carmen Lomas Garza. © 1980, Carmen Lomas Garza