Chilean artist Apia exhibits at the Art Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas

Honoring Women’s History Month at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas, the renowned Chilean artist Carolina V. Garcia (Apia) inaugurated on Friday, March 15th, 2024 her solo exhibition “Exaggerations of History, a Miniature Portrait Series with Augmented Reality Experiences.” This project brings together 101 miniature portraits of female artists spanning from the 12th to the 20th century, accompanied by augmented reality (AR) experiences. The exhibition is curated by Jorge Rodríguez Diez, and is on view from March 15th – May 3th, 2024.

“Exaggerations of History” is a compelling collection of 101 miniature portrait paintings of female artists spanning from the 12th to the 20th centuries, each coupled with an embedded Augmented Reality (AR) experience. Via an app-enabled AR journey, viewers are privy to a video narrative that vividly brings to life the biography and creative trajectory of each artist. A salient goal of this series is to affirm the significant role of women in the arts from the outset. Apia views this omission in historical records as a profound distortion of history.

The artists selected for this compilation were pivotal during their eras but were conspicuously absent from scholarly texts, effectively leaving successive generations bereft of a full historical narrative. This gap has led to a misguided perception that women’s contributions to the arts are a more recent phenomenon. Apia asserts that this misrepresentation stems from our intrinsic human shortcomings. In an intentional nod to these shortcomings, the series features minuscule paintings that were deliberately crafted without the assistance of magnification tools.

Each miniature is less than a square inch in surface area and was meticulously rendered in watercolor, gouache, and water-soluble graphite. The painting process required the artist to spend extensive periods in contemplation, studying the reference images and committing them to memory. This involved dissecting the geometry of the postures, analyzing the composition, the palette, and so on. This meticulous approach was necessary as Apia needed to maintain a consistent hand-eye coordination, which meant not diverting her gaze from the piece at hand.

Ingeniously, the water used was not in a container but rather a single drop on a piece of adhesive tape, a technique that further focused attention on the diminutive work. Apia recalls instances of painting details that were barely visible to the naked eye, such as when she inscribed text on the image of Guda; the writing is nearly invisible unaided but becomes legible upon magnification.

Mastery of this technique was achieved through practice, enabling its incorporation into the artwork. She discusses the challenge of painting eyelids, where the brush had to be applied purely from muscle memory due to the minuscule distance between the eyelid and the eye. Each miniature could take up to four days to complete, demanding intense concentration, steady hands, and acute vision; it was imperative to afford the necessary time. Furthermore, due to their size, each layer had to be microscopically dry before proceeding to ensure the painting’s integrity.

Apia (Carolina V. Garcia / b.1977, Chile) is a multidisciplinary artist based in South Florida. Garcia has a degree in Engineering. She works seamlessly with different mediums and formats, as she goes from miniature painting to large 3D installations and murals. The focus of her practice is not surrendered to a medium or a type of work, but to the advocacy for inclusion, making her work as diverse as she expects the world to be. Solo exhibitions include “Exaggerations of History” at the Museum of Contemporary Art for the Americas from March 15 – May 3, 2024. The museum is located at 12063 SW 131st Ave, Miami, Fl 33186.