STC showcases art of RGC native Xavier Garza

Currently at Starr County Campus
September 30th – October 31, 2008

South Texas College’s Starr County Campus Library Art Gallery is proud to present “Lucha Libre,” an exhibit featuring artwork by artist and children’s book author and illustrator Xavier Garza. The exhibit will be on view now through Oct. 31st. A reception will be held on Tuesday, September 30th from 2-4 p.m. at the Starr County Campus Library. Admission is free and open to the public.

Xavier Garza, author of “Lucha Libre: The Man In the Silver Mask,” grew up in Rio Grande City and uses his experiences as a child and the folktales and stories he heard growing up as the basis for his books and drawings. “Lucha Libre” was the winner of the Best Children’s Book of 2005 by Críticas Magazine. Garza is also the author of “Creepy Creatures and Other Cucuys” and “Juan and the Chupacabras,” for which he won the 2008 Tejas Star Book Award, which is awarded by the Region One Educational Services Center to recognize excellence in dual-language books for children.

Garza’s art exhibit features many of his paintings, drawings and illustrations of famed and mythical Mexican luchadores, masked professional wrestlers. In regards to his art Garza says, “I paint about what I have experienced in my life. Going to Lucha Libre as a child, and being afraid of El Cucuy. Listening to the Pedro Infante songs my grandmothers sang to me as she rocked me to sleep. These are all factors in my work as an author/artist.”
The STC Starr County Campus Library Art Gallery is located at 142 FM 3167 in Rio Grande City.

For more information call (956) 872-3488, email: libraryart@southtexascollege.edu or visit www.southtexascollege.edu/libraryart.