Laura Husar Garcia: Wishes

The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present a premier solo exhibition of photographs by Laura Husar Garcia in our FlexSpace Gallery.

Artist Statement:

“Several years ago, I collected hundreds of smooth, flat stones for my mother when she became a widow.  I placed them in a simple box for her to keep.  Whenever we felt the need, we walked down the hill and made wishes in the pond below the family cabin.  The box of wishes burned in a massive house fire, yet the stones remained.  This gave me a continued sense of hope, enabling me to make new wishes from what once was, while rebuilding our home.  With each toss of a stone, the universal symbol of the circle came forth in a consistent response with expanding ripples, a reminder of the eternal and infinite.  My favorite time is dusk, when water reflects the day’s end with a deep blue.  Entitled Wishes, this work stems from a blend of melancholy and yearning, focusing on the past, present and future.  For me, the blue that quietly develops at dusk is soothing, contemplative, and spiritual.  The physical expression of tossing stones in the water is an act of mediation with the seen and unseen.”  ~Laura Husar Garcia, May 2017

Laura Husar Garcia has documented the intimacies of the human spirit and the beauty of nature for more than 25 years.  Her photography has been exhibited widely, including Fotofever at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, France, The Polish Museum of America in Chicago, Photo Indepenent in Los Angeles, California, The Rangefinder Gallery in Chicago, Tilt Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, Galeria el Zocalo in Santa Fe, New Mexico and LightBox Photographic Gallery in Astoria, Oregon, among others.

Laura is co-winner of a 1st place Community Grant from the Illinois Humanities Council and a 2015 Photolucida Critical Mass top 200 finalist.  Her photographs have been published in several books, including “America At Home: A Close-up Look at How We Live”, which is one of the largest collaborative photographic projects in publishing history.  Her work has also been published in The New York Times, National Geographic Magazine, Newsweek, Slate Magazine, and several other publications and books.  Laura has been a photo editor for various workshops including The Chicago Photography Center and a portfolio reviewer at Columbia College in Chicago.  She was a photographer in Santa Fe, NM, for more than ten years, where her foundation as an artist took root, before moving to Chicago where she became a photo editor at The Chicago Tribune.  Currently Laura is the co-founder and Creative Director of Three Story Media and she lives in Riverside, IL.

Her work will be exhibited in Platform Gallery’s “Staged”, a group show in Evantston, IL in conjunction with Evanston Made on June 3rd.

More of her work can be seen at www.husargarcia.com