Kalena Marshall Garcia
“good with a camera”

Projects
You Don’t Look Puerto Rican
COMPHET
Learning Solidarity 1 & 2
Arroz y no Gandules
Domino
Sustainable Printing
Video Work
Curation  
Collaborations
Archive About
Resume/ CV
Contact

About the Artist


Kalena Marshall Garcia (she/they/ella/elle) is a lens-based artist born and raised in Southern California’s IE. She grew up taking 35mm photos of the “American West”, doing community work in local spaces, and was surrounded by arts and culture produced in low income working class Latine neighborhoods. This upbringing, rooted in both personal and collective history, continues to shape her work today.

She graduated from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia with a BA in Visual Studies in Fall 2023. Marshall Garcia’s work engages with themes of Diasporic Puerto Rican identity, queerness, domestic spaces, working-class experiences, institutional critique, and the socio-political challenges faced by her communities. Her perspective as a mixed artist often places her in a paralleled space navigating dual identities, a tension she explores through her work in many different ways.

Through her practice, she challenges reductive narratives and aims to foster inclusivity and understanding of inequalities within institutional spaces. By creating works that spark dialogue around the complexities of cultural heritage, solidarity, Diasporic experiences, and systemic inequalities, she seeks to contribute to broader social conversations and uplift the communities she belongs to and intersects with. Her work takes many forms, ranging from silver gelatin prints to video/ audio work to large scale installations. Her approach is conceptual, research-driven, and reflective of her lived experiences, bridging institutional and communal spaces through representational and educational works.