About
J. Molina-Garcia (she/her) is a Salvadoran-American media artist, writer, and educator. A citizen of the Global South and an American Dreamer, J’s research engages mystical and esoteric traditions of ancient Mesoamerica, South(east) Asia, and Pan African spirituality.
In this pursuit, she synthesizes marginalized realms of knowledge alongside science, science-fiction, non-western philosophy, and leftist political theory.
Her aesthetic output takes on an epic scale, creating immersive physical and psychic environments that use lens-based and time-based technologies to transport viewers into non-physical realms.
Her work is not only interdisciplinary, but multidimensional, functioning like a perceptual wormhole that attempts to ignite a viewer's unconscious spiritual and cognitive abilities.
Through heavy-handed alteration of photographic imagery, darkroom experiments, and performance projects that center her body as a transwoman, she elicits visionary experiences and emancipatory phenomena.
J holds an MFA degree in Photography+Extended Media from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and graduated with dual degrees in Photography and Art History from the University of North Texas. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography and Digital Futures at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA.
Artist Statement
An assemblagist to my core, I cut, disassemble, and build monster fictions. The philosophy of the monster, as a demonstrative and demonic tool, underpins my aesthetic and intellectual preoccupations. As many scholars have noted - from diverse fields in queer-feminist studies, critical race and posthumanist theory - the monster is at the ontological core of Western civilization’s self-image and dark past.
What this has meant on the level of production is that I choose promiscuous multiplicities over sectarianism, continually testing the capacity of technological tools to transform perception. In my work with counterfeit documents (the Superpasaporte), military mimics (as I forge State-sponsored camouflage patterns), and the “Smart” architecture behind the Omni Hotel reconstruction, I test the ability of civic life to reset itself by first decolonizing vision. Principally, I am interested in how militaristic technology can be reframed (hijacked) to be queer, fem, & amorous (not adversarial). Consequently, my images are restless; they look like they’ve been sent through a meat-grinder. They are monstrous, in order to demonstrate, and show the way, as a lantern would.
CV
SELECTED GROUP/SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 Touching History: Stonewall 50; curated by David Frantz, Palm Springs Museum of Art, Palm Springs, California
2019 Next Exit; EX OVO Gallery, Dallas, Texas.
2019 Altered After; group exhibition curated by Conrad Ventur & VisualAIDS, New York, New York.
2019 Dallas Pavillion invitational exhibition (group), Pollock Gallery, Dallas, Texas.
2019 Bethesda Brotherhood; solo exhibition. Lawndale Art Center; Houston, Texas.
2019 Looms, Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, Dallas, Texas.
2018 In Sickness; two-person show curated by Benjamin Terry. Texas Woman’s University; Denton, Texas.
2018 Transmission Reentry; curated by Giovanni Valderas. SP/N Gallery, University of Texas at Dallas; Richardson, Texas.
2016 Cut-Ups: Queer Collage Practices; curated by David Frantz, Lucas Hilderbrand, and Kayleigh Perkov Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art; New York, New York.
2016 Cock, Paper, Scissors; curated by David Frantz, Lucas Hilderbrand, and Kayleigh Perkov (juried group show), Plummer Park, ONE Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
ADVISING & SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
2021
Rocks are Magic: Deep Time Fables (v2)
VCU Faculty Lecture Series, Richmond, Virginia
2021
Rocks are Magic: Deep Time Fables (v1)
The Sweetpass Sculpture Park School, Dallas, Texas.
2019
Panel Talk
Group Artist Talk and Discussion, Touching History, Palm Springs Museum of Art, Palm Springs, California.
2019
Artist Talk
Group Artist Talk and Discussion, Ex Ovo Gallery, Dallas Texas.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY & PRESS
Jonathan Molina-Garcia, “Love Spirals,” Dismantling Borders, Building Bridges: Immigration and Diaspora, Durham: NC: Duke University Press (forthcoming).
2020
Natalie Gempel, “Should the Omni Dallas Put ‘Black Lives Matter’ on Its Facade?” D Magazine online.
2019
Lillian Michel, “Landmarks and What They Communicate: ‘Next Exit’ at ex ovo,” Glasstire online.
2019
Darryl Ratcliff, “West Dallas sculpture park provides an oasis in a rapidly changing neighborhood,” Dallas Morning News.
2019
Conrad Ventur, “Altered After,” Altered After exhibition catalogue, Visual Aids, New York.
2018
Jennifer Smart, “Transmission Reentry Reveals the Material of Soft Power”, DMagazine Online