Recent Paintings
by Julio Valdez, three series reflecting the artist’s intrigue
with spatial and psychological uncertainty amidst certain global
realities, will open at the June Kelly Gallery, 166 Mercer
Street, on February 29. The works will remain on view
through April 16.
In previous gallery
exhibitions, Valdez presented paintings reflecting the serenity
and beauty of the Caribbean waters, using abstraction with
figuration that stirs unconscious awareness and dreams. In
this body of work, Valdez takes us to a different place.
In this post-COVID-19 and January-6 world, and amidst ongoing
police brutality and racism, masks are shed. The innocence
of dreaming in Caribbean waters is now cloudy greyness filled
with rage.
Valdez writes, “These
recent works consist of primarily three series: Pandemic
Portraits & Self-Portraits, I Can’t Breathe and January
6, 2021. They explore the role that memories, life
experiences and dreams play in inspiring contemplation while
simultaneously reflecting an inner world informed by my personal
and collective history.
I practice portraiture as
an imperfect translation of a self that can never be captured.
My Pandemic Portraits and Self-portraits are a
vehicle for exploring cultural identity, as the COVID-19
pandemic has become a cultural experience that is redefining us
from the inside out as individuals and as a people.
The series I Can’t
Breathe is an exploration of how art happens when it is
stirred by injustices and America’s longstanding tacit
acceptance of racism as a “norm” in our society. The
January 6, 2021, series further explores what happens when
these attitudes are amplified and used for undermining our
democracy.” Further, Valdez says, I use the "all over
technique," to call the attention of the viewer to the entire
visual field. I focus on visual aspects (transparency,
color saturation, luminosity, forms, etc.), and combine them in
such a way that form and content become inseparable.
Valdez was born in Santo
Domingo and studied at Altos de Chavόn School of Design in La
Romana at the National School of Fine Arts in Santo Domingo.
He also studied under printmakers Robert Blackburn and Kathy
Caraccio in New York. He lives and works in New York City
and Washington, DC.
Valdez’s paintings have
been shown in many one-person and group exhibitions in the
United States, the Caribbean, Canada, Asia, and Europe. He
is represented in numerous public, corporate, and private
collections, including El Museo del Barrio, New York; Los
Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Latin American Art, Long
Beach, CA.; Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers
University, New Jersey; the Library of Congress and The World
Bank, Washington, DC; Musée Grimaldi, Cagnes-Sur-Mer, France;
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Museum of
Modern Art, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Omar Rayo Museum,
Roldanillo, Colombia; and the US Department of State Art in
Embassies Program permanent collection. In 2019, Valdez
was part of the official representation of the Dominican
Republic at the 58th Venice Biennale. The museum
exhibition Julio Valdez: Mapping the Layers was presented in
2022 at the Art Museum of the Americas, Organization of American
States (OAS), Washington, DC. In 2023, Valdez was
recipient of the Grand Prize, XXX National Biennial of Visual
Arts, Museo de Arte Moderno in Santo Domingo.
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