Amanda Valdez

Amanda Valdez makes colorful, multimedia works, populated by shapes that oscillate between representation and abstraction. The works have a very strong physicality, immediacy, and sense of embodiment. Various materials—embroidery, acrylic paint, fabric and canvas—are sewn together to become continuous, integral elements of the work. Sewn elements are not delicate. Fabric and stitches do not cede to painted elements, and the overall effect is one of materials acting out and asserting themselves, yet the final work gives a sense of holistic embodiment, wrangled from the potential anxiety of fragmentation.

Valdez’s work has been exhibited at the Abrons Art Center, New York City, SOIL in Seattle, WA, ArtBridge Drawing Room, New York City, the Wassaic Project in Wassaic, New York, Flux Factory in Queens, New York, and Lesley Heller Workspace in New York City. Valdez has been the recipient of a Yaddo Artist-in-Residency, MacDowell Colony Artist-in-Residency, and the 2011 College Art Association MFA Professional-Development Fellowship. She is also a contributing arts editor at Dossier Journal and Bomb Magazine.

Courtesy of Denny Gallery