Julio Valdez
Biography:
Julio Valdez is a painter, printmaker, teacher and mixed-media installation artist. He was part of the official representation of the Dominican Republic at the 58th Venice Biennale in Italy in 2019. Valdez has presented 30 institutional and gallery solo exhibitions nationally and internationally, and has participated in more than 100 group exhibitions, biennials and related educational programs in the visual arts.
Among his numerous awards, he received the Artist-in-Residence Fellowship at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City in 1997-98 and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for printmaking in 2003. Since 2004 he has been teaching Non-toxic printmaking workshops internationally.
His most recent solo show was presented at June Kelly Gallery, New York, from November 2019 – January 15, 2020. A new museum exhibition is scheduled for May 2022 at the Art Museum of the Americas, Organization of American States (OAS), Washington, DC.
Statement:
My recent work reflects my interest in creating a spatial uncertainty, a sense of time not yet defined. I continue to explore ways of including my personal experiences and memories in my paintings. The events of the recent year going through the Covid-19 pandemic, has inspired the new ongoing series of Pandemic Portraits. I am using inks, acrylics and oils. I grew up in the Caribbean, where the surrounding waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea create a unique sense of light and space. My paintings explore this oceanic landscape that is both illusory and dreamlike. I have been examining images of water beyond its physical characteristics, as a metaphor for consciousness and the creative process.
For over three decades, my work has focused on the geographical and political circumstances that have defined the Caribbean region. I explore cultural identity from both historical and formal perspectives. Historically, the old and new worlds encountered each other in the Caribbean. This is the territory where everything started, where the first slave ship came, where the first knee was laid on the neck of another human being who was left unable to breathe.
In my water paintings, I use the "all over technique," which is rooted in abstract expressionism, to call the attention of the viewer to the entire visual field. I do this to convey a sense of being immersed in the expansiveness of the ocean. In addition, I focus on visual aspects (transparency, color saturation, luminosity, forms, etc.), and combine them in such a way that the separation of form and content become inseparable. This results in a spatial uncertainty, where sense of time and perspective is not defined, reflecting the Caribbean culture where time unfolds irregularly and resists being captured by the clock and the calendar.
These works have been inspired by diverse places such as the Reserva de la Biosfera Ria Celestún, a large coastal wetland reserve and wildlife refuge in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. Other places that have inspired my visual explorations in these paintings are Las Terrenas and Cayo Arenas, both in the Dominican Republic. These places allow me to experience a communion with nature and its cycles, which I have found are an inviting entry >point to my own inner explorations.
Résumé:
Born Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic.
Lives and works in Washington DC and New York City
Education
1994-95 Printmaking with Robert Blackburn and Kathy Caraccio, New York
1986-88 Fine Arts/Illustration, Altos de Chav?n School of Design, La Romana
Dominican Republic, affiliated with Parsons School of Design, New York
1984-86 National School of Fine Arts, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Solo Exhibition
2021 Water Paintings, David Richard Gallery
2019 Water Abstractions, June Kelly Gallery, New York
2017 Julio Valdez: Recent Works, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC
Dreams & Reflections, June Kelly Gallery, New York
2016 Dreams & Reflections, Latin American Masters, Santa Monica, CA
The Blue Planet, Reeves-Reed Arboretum, Summit, NJ
2015 Julio Valdez & Irene Carlos, Galería Ana Lucia Gomez, Guatemala, Central America
2014 Para Soñar el Sol (In Order to Dream the Sun): New Paintings, June Kelly Gallery, New York
2013 Julio Valdez: Recent Paintings, Latin American Masters, Santa Monica, CA
2012-2013 Nature: Prints, Drawings and Mixed Media, curated by Graciela Kartofel, The Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT; catalog
2012 Nature: Prints, Drawings and Mixed Media, curated by Graciela Kartofel, The Arsenal Gallery, The Arsenal in Central Park, New York; catalog
Julio Valdez: Selected Work, King Street Gallery, Montgomery College, MD
2010 In the Same Path as the Sun: New Paintings, June Kelly Gallery, New York
New Water Paintings, Latin American Masters, Santa Monica, CA
2009 El Mar de los Delirios, Galeria Botello, San Juan, Puerto Rico; brochure
2008 Julio Valdez: Obra Recientes, Legacy Fine Arts, Panama City, Panama
2007 Water Paintings, June Kelly Gallery, New York
Julio Valdez: Water Paintings, Latin American Masters, Beverly Hills, CA
2005 Julio Valdez: Recent Works, Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2004 Between Shock and Tenderness, Galeria Botello, San Juan, Puerto Rico; brochure
2003 Julio Valdez: Selected Works, Latin American Masters, Beverly Hills, CA
The Island and the Continent, The Art Museum of the America Organization of American States, Washington, DC; brochure
Recent Works, Solar Latin American Art and Design, East Hampton, NY
2002 Echando Raíces, Galeria Botello, San Juan, Puerto Rico
2001 Julio Valdez: Obras Recientes, Legacy Fine Art, Panama City, Panama
Julio Valdez: Los Sacrificios Fecundos, Fundacion Centro Cultural, Altos de Chav?n Gallery, La Romana, Dominican Republic; catalogue
2000 Julio Valdez: Recent Paintings, Latin American Masters, Beverly Hills, CA
Obras Recientes de Julio Valdez, Galería Botello, San Juan, Puerto Rico
1999 Root of Dreams, Museo de las Casas Reales, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; catalogue
Works on Paper, Maison des Arts et de la Culture, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu Quebec, Canada
1998 Julio Valdez: Transpositions, Toomey-Tourell Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA
Transpositions, Museum of Modern Art, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; catalogue
1997 Transpositions, Museo de las Americas, San Juan, Puerto Rico; catalogue
1995 Cantos: Recent Works 1989-1995, Voluntariado de las Casas Reales, Santo Domingo Dominican Republic
1995 Cantos: Recent Works 1989-1995, Center for the Arts and Culture, Santiago, Dominican Republic
1993 La Era del Mito, Galeria San Juan Bautista, Casa Alcaldia, San Juan, Puerto Rico
1992 Julio Valdez: Recent Works, Galeria Plastica Contemporanea, Guatemala, Central America
1991 Habitos del Tiempo, Voluntariado de las Casas Reales, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; brochure
1989 Aire Fresco, Institute of Hispanic Culture, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021 Inside Outside, Upside Down, The Phillips Collection, Washington DC
2020 USPS traveling exhibition, Pelham Art Center, Pelham, NY
2019 58th Venice Biennale, Pavillion of The Dominican Republic – Venice, Italy
Summertime, Faction Art Projects, Harlem, New York
Affordable Art Fair, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York
Art on Paper Fair, Pier 36, New York
2017 Celebrating 30 Years, Gallery Artists: Drawing and Photography, June Kelly Gallery, New York
2016 Monoprint Invitational Exhibition, Woodstock School of Art, NY
2014 - 15 Modern and Contemporary Dominican Art: Works From The Collection
Of The General Directorate Of Customs, Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC, traveled to United Nations, New York;
Instituto Cervantes, Madrid, Spain; Eugenio Granell Foundation, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
2014 Paper Trail, New Works on Paper, Latin American Masters, Santa Monica, CA
2013 International Drawing Biennial, Palace of Fine Arts, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
2012 The Big Picture: A Photography Exhibition in Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the IDB Cultural Center, Dulles International Airport, Dulles, VA
2011 Emerging Artists from Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by the World Bank Art Program, Washington, DC.
The exhibition is being shown on a rotating basis among the World Bank offices in Washington and Paris, as well as
at the Cultural Center of the Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC
2010 International Triennial of the Caribbean, Museum of Modern Art, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
2009 Creative Dialogues: Latin American Printmakers, Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT
2008 Silk Aquatint: Painterly Graphics, Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, New York
2007 Art of Collecting, Flint Institute of Arts, MI
ReGrouping: Three Generations of Latin American Artists in New York, Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, New York
2006 ¡Merengue! Visual Rythms, El Museo del Barrio, New York
This Skin I’m In: Contemporary Dominican Art from El Museo del Barrio’s Permanent Collection, New York
Transplant/Transculture, Wave Hill Glyndor Gallery, Riverdale, New York
Silk Aquatint: Painterly Graphics, Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT
2005 My Island, My Home, The Long Island Museum, Stony Brook, Long Island, NY
2004 Silk Aquatint: Painterly Graphics, State Department, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico; traveling exhibition
2003 La Joven Estampa, Latin American Print Biennial, Casa de las Americas, La Habana, Cuba
International Print Bienal, Varna, Bulgaria
Gráfica, Solar Latin American Art and Design, East Hampton, NY
The Solarplate Revolution, organized by Dan Welden, Whitney Art Works, Greenport, NY
2002 XIX E. Le?n Jiménes Biennial, Santiago, Dominican Republic
2001 Obra Gráfica, Saludo a la XIII Bienal de San Juan, Galeria Botello, Puerto Ric
XII Bienal Iberoamericana de Arte, Instituto Cultural Domecq, Ciudad de México
1999 XXX ème Festival International de la Peinture, Musée Grimaldi, Château-Musée, Cagnes-Sur-Mer, France, traveled to Caraibes, Europe, Japan and Maro
Mitos en El Caribe, Exposicion y Simposio, Casa de Las Americas, La Habana, Cuba
XII Bienal Iberoamericana de Arte, Instituto Cultural Domecq, Ciudad de Mexico
1st Argentinian Biennial of Latin American Prints, Buenos Aires, Argentina