Continuing CALA’s commitment to engaging audiences through dynamic virtual programming, CALA Presenta > Charlas is a series of conversations between Contemporary U.S. Latinx and Latin American artists with Executive Director and Curator Alana Hernandez. The conversation series give viewers the opportunity to remotely visit artists’ studios and hear more about their practice through informal conversations. Emphasizing CALA’s commitment to U.S. Latinx and artists in Latin America, these artist conversations explore the dynamism that exists within the Latinx and Latin American art communities. Featuring artists that span geographic locations in and outside of the United States, CALA Presenta > Charlas are presented monthly via Zoom.
Vincent Valdez (b. 1977, San Antonio, TX) lives and works in Houston, TX. Valdez is recognized for his monumental portrayal of the contemporary figure. His drawn and painted subjects remark on a universal struggle within various socio-political arenas and eras. He states, “my aim is to incite public remembrance and to impede distorted realities that I witness, like the social amnesia that surrounds me.”
He received a full scholarship to the Rhode Island School of Design, earning his BFA in 2000. A recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors (2016), as well as residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting (2005), the Vermont Studio Center (2011) and the Kunstlerhaus Bethania Berlin Residency (2014) and Joan Mitchell Center (2018). Valdez is the 2019 Artadia awardee in Houston, TX, and is currently an artist fellow at NXTHVN in New Haven, founded by Titus Kaphar and Jonathan Brand.
The artist’s work is included in eighteen museum collections across the United States. Exhibitions and collections include Ford Foundation, New York, NY; Home — So Different, So Appealing, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (2017); The City, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX (2018); Between Play and Grief: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2019); The Face of Battle: Americans at War, 9/11 to Now, Smithsonian Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC (2017); among others.
Valdez is represented by David Shelton Gallery and Mathew Brown Los Angeles.