SAY Sí alumnus creates raw images

Then there is his art: raw-looking paintings and meticulous ink drawings with collage that depict severed human heads, some embellished with cutout paper flowers that somehow only serve to make the pieces more disturbing.

"They're kind of shocking," Garcia says. "There's no way around it, really."

A newly minted graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Garcia recently returned to his native San Antonio for "Invisible Threads," an alumni exhibit at SAY Sí.

He and David Cordero are the featured artists in the curated show celebrating the youth art program's 15th anniversary. It is on display through Friday at SAY Sí Central, 1518 S. Alamo St.

"Every time I come here, I feel so comfortable," says the 25-year-old, flopping down in a chair in SAY Sí's library. "It's like coming back to the pad."

Garcia, who grew up on the West Side, participated in the youth arts program from 1998 to 2002, building on skills he began developing as a graffiti artist, then as a student in art classes at Healy-Murphy Center.

"I see a lot of the work that he did at SAY Sí — the materials and mediums he learned — still referenced in his work," says executive director Jon Hinojosa.

But, at least in regard to his work in "Invisible Threads," it is Garcia's subject matter that is most striking. For about a year, the artist has been working on what he refers to simply as "the heads."

"A lot of where this idea came from is . . . being in Chicago. I've been paying attention to a lot of the violence that's been going on in the city," he says. "Since I've been up there for a little bit over six years, it's just become this thing you read in the paper."