Interview with D.C. artist Luis Peralta Del Valle
“We can protest without going to a march or destroying things. We can fight with our talent, I think a lot of times, we can reach a broader audience and engage people in a wider dialogue by creating a work of art.”
Luis Peralta Del Valle with his wife Amanda Stephenson and his portrait of Pope Francis, part of the National Museum of Catholic Art and Library collection
Luis Peralta Del Valle uses art to expose a local culture and community to audiences that might not otherwise know they exist; using art as a teaching tool.
The D.C. artist and muralist, born in Nicaragua and bred in the District, started his career as a street artist, using spray paint to tag the sides of buildings in Columbia Heights.
“At first I just wanted to get my name everywhere and express myself. I was just telling people at the time, that I’m here, we’re here and we’re more than what you see,” he recalls, referring to his graffiti phase.
Del Valle has lived in the District since 1985. His D.C. roots are apparent in his work. Though he lives in the District’s Anacostia neighborhood today, his paintings seem even more closely associated with his boyhood in Columbia Heights, a D.C. neighborhood known historically for its racial and ethnic diversity. His early works represent a graffiti style that thrived on city streets in the early’90s when he began to take his artwork seriously.
While still young man, he transitioned from clandestine graffiti street artist into the more official world of muralism, taking part of projects led by community organizations and local government agencies. He credits his early ventures into the mural world with turning his life around, after realizing art must be his calling if he was willing to take so many risks.
“The fact that I was doing (graffiti) for free and doing it illegally made me realize this is what I wanted to do,” he says.
His talent did not go unnoticed, opening the door to higher education, and eventually branching out from street artistry to explore smaller formats, particularly portraiture. He took classes and lectures as D.C.’s Corcoran School of Art and Design. He met Judy Byron, an artist who lives in DC’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood, and would become his mentor.
“He took advantage of every opportunity with such an openness,” recalls Byron, who helped him hone technical skills and launch his career as a working artist. “Art is at the center of his biochemistry,” she says.
Peralta Del Valle with Love 007, a painting he donated that helped Hola Cultura raise operating funds last year
Today he has a thriving mural practice with work at the gym of Roosevelt High School, Fredrick Douglass House, the Italian Consulate in DC and in art galleries and homes around the D.M.V. area. He also has an extensive portfolio of portraits and has completed abstract work on commission, as well as art installations and other projects.
He still occasionally paints in graffiti mural style. For example, his abstract series entitled Troublemakers mixes the graffiti form with his own style. But he’s mostly moved on from the street-style that he once used as a means of expression.
These days Del Valle is well known for his portraits of African American historical figures as well as figures centric to Washington D.C. His love for the city shows through in these paintings as well as his placement of the city’s historic landmarks in his work. His portrait of Marion Barry resides in the Fredrick Douglass House. He has also painted groundbreaking African-American ballerina, Misty Copeland. Another mixed media piece features Carlos Santana, Michael Jackson and the singer Cee Loo Green.
Del Valle says he likes the “duality” these cultural icons represent, allowing him “to highlight the negative and the positive,” he says. In his portrait of Marilyn Monroe, for instance, her face is obscured by bubblegum, calling attention to her troubled personal life.
While his works are not necessarily political statements, the political undertones are unmistakable. Troublemakers, for instance, includes the portraits of civil rights icons Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez, late leader of the United Farm Workers movement.
Peralta Del Valle’s ortrait of the late D.C. Mayor Marion Barry
Peralta Del Valle’s portrait of the late Cesar Chavez, the leader of the United Farm Workers Movement.
“We can protest without going to a march or destroying things,” he says. “We can fight with our talent, I think a lot of times, we can reach a broader audience and engage people in a wider dialogue by creating a work of art.”
His deep religiosity also shines through his work. One of his most recognized works is a portrait of Pope Francis. In the background there are abstract flecks of paint that Del Valle says represent “the way I imagine the spirit of Christ as an encompassing light around a person.”
He sees the religious themes that reoccur in his work as an extension of his interest in quiet resistance and in figures both political and cultural who defy the odds in positive, pacific ways; eschewing violence.
Both on his canvasses and in his life, Del Valle represents the struggle and perseverance involved in doing work that you love; and using that work to help the community and culture you love, which is why he says art is at its most powerful when its used as a tool.
“Once you make it a teaching tool,” he says, “it becomes strong.”
—Robin Peterson
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He is my teacher in LAYC the art class and he is amazing