The Distance Between…, by M. Willie Garcia

Snap Space Gallery, September 18 – November 6, 2026

Preview reception, Friday September 18, 2026, from 5:00 – 9:00 PM

Opening Reception: First Friday, October 2, 2026, from 5:00 – 9:00 PM

Closing Reception: First Friday – November 6, 2026, 5:00 – 8:00 PM 

In this site-specific mixed media print installation Matthew Willie Garcia explores what it means to live alongside the unknown. Drawing from science, science fiction, and personal identity, the installation invites viewers to reflect on their place within a universe that has been expanding for 13.8 billion years. It’s a meditation on awe, curiosity, and the willingness to release the need for certainty.

Using printed matter, projection mapping, and sculpture, the space is transformed into an observatory, a temple, and a queer sacred space. The work explores the visual language of the cosmos, employing sumi and fluorescent inks alongside the luminosity of projected light to evoke a space that hovers between the flatness of surface and the depth of the universe. This shifting dimensionality gently destabilizes the viewer’s sense of gravity and scale.

The Distance Between… , Installation View, M. Willie Garcia

Bio

M. Willie Garcia, a California native now based in Kansas City, MO. Garcia’s work transcends traditional print media working in screen printing, mokuhanga, projection-mapping, animation, and large-scale installations. Inspired by a blend of science, science fiction, and their queer identity, they explore these themes through color abstraction and nonrepresentational forms. Holding a B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute and an M.F.A. from the University of Kansas, Garcia has earned acclaim regionally, notably exhibiting at the Nerman Contemporary Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center and internationally in Japan and Spain. And most recently they served as the 2024/2025 Grant Wood Fellow at the University of Iowa.