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.

Born Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic
Lives and works in New York City