Juan Pablo Garza

Just about a year ago, I stumbled upon this picture taken by my father. I would benefit from his camera many years later. In the picture, you can see my older brother in our living room: a space dedicated to idleness, playing games, watching movies and TV, or plain family talk. My guess is that these pictures were taken in 1988. We had just moved into this new home, a moment I have fond memories of.

So here it is: my brother in a Strawberry Shortcake blanket, a whole bunch of pastel colors surrounding him. He’s listening to The Beatles or Juan Luis Guerra after playing Nintendo games, disconnected from the real world and immersed into a reality of coziness, music, and daydreaming.

Finding these images meant finally being able to answer something that had been startling to me for quite a while about my photography and my installation work. I found myself irresistibly inclined to work with a very specific color palette, and even though I often tried to abandon it, I always came back to it. I’m speaking of muted pastel colors, and I look at these pictures and the space they depict as a clear answer to the origins of that impulse.