Antonio Garcia is an aspiring artist from Brooklyn who is currently working on his main art project titled “Stranger Intimacy.”
Having traveled between New York, Florida, and California throughout his teen years, he specializes in contemporary artwork that portrays the raw emotional depth of real stories from everyone he meets. In his project, he explained that everyone around the city has a different story, struggle, or burden that weighs them down when not shared with the world. As such, he attempts to bring out this struggle in a way thats beautiful, yet respectful to the crisis it attempts to portray, arguing that the medium of art is one that can transcend reality, language, and people as a whole.
“I need to meet people that I’ve never seen before, who have something to say. And for me to like create art about it…it’s like a public service project, where I come up with these questions and then take to the streets to answer them.”
Antonio Garcia
As a full-time artist for the last 7 years, Antonio attributes much of the success in his work to the positive reception of the city and its people. Although he has visited other cities throughout his career, Antonio firmly believed that New York City was the true melting pot of creative freedom, passion, and energy amongst artists and citizens alike. Busking can only truly exist when the place in which the buskers reside, and Antonio emphasized that there is a lack of personable engagement with the creative arts in today society as much as he’d like it to be. On the day that we met him, Antonio even shared that he was exhibiting a live painting performance in Williamsburg and went as far as to invite our group to the showing of the work if were available to attend. It became clear to our group that buskers like Antonio take immense pride in their work as a career rather than the misguided “side gig” culture that most associate with street performers in New York City.
“There’s so much love for art. Compliance is just living in your phone, but people want to talk with artists in person and get to know them. There’s a desire for that connection and I don’t think that’s gonna die anytime soon.”
Antonio Garcia
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