Julio Valdez on art’s duty to capture life’s light and dark currents
Julio Valdez’s passion spills through, even on a Zoom call. He has the playful energy of a father coaching Little League Baseball — not exactly what you’d expect from an artist who reckons with things like colonization in the Caribbean and the Black Lives Matter movement. But it fits him all the same, with most of his art drawing out just as much passion from viewers.
A painter, printmaker and mixed-media artist, Valdez is known for his vibrant and vivid artwork, with subjects ranging from bodies of water to everyday citizens facing a global pandemic. He has been an artist for most of his life and has won international awards and acclaim for nearly as long. Valdez’s work has been honored from the Caribbean to the United States to China and has led him to meetings with former presidents, ambassadors and fellow trailblazers of the art world.
Valdez’s first connection to Washington, D.C. was when his son entered Murch Elementary School in Northwest Washington. Since then, the city has been his home, both for his family and for his artwork. Today he lives between New York and D.C. Raised in the Dominican Republic, Valdez’s childhood home shines through in his artwork, most of which touches on the Caribbean as a theme of sorts.
How did you get into making art?
I was very fortunate. I knew this was my calling from an early age in my life. It was very organic. I started taking it seriously when I was 15. Before that I was always painting and taking classes. Like every kid in the Dominican Republic, I wanted to be a baseball player as well. It was my passion. At one point, I realized I couldn’t do both at the same time. So I dropped the glove and bat, stayed in the School of Fine Arts, then won an award at a very early stage. It was a watercolor piece about a family roasting a pig, which was something I used to see all the time during Christmas. It was called “Vida Campesina,” and it won an award in China, of all places. I was only 14. It was for an international competition for children. My teacher told me to send it, and I won the silver medal. I remember the ambassador of China giving me this award at the National Library in Santo Domingo. From a very young age, there was something there that I knew I should pursue.
I won another award when I was 15 in Argentina. Then I got a full-time scholarship to study at Altos de Chavón, which is affiliated with Parsons School of Design in New York and is established near a very famous resort called Casa de Campo. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had my first solo show when I was only 20, and it received a lot of attention. I remember that show won best solo show for a new artist from the Dominican Republic chapter of the International Association of Art Critics. Then I entered the National Biennial of Visual Arts and I started receiving recognitions and honorable mentions. Eventually, I became a teacher at the school of Altos de Chavón in the Parsons’ Dominican Republic branch. I was always like the youngest, so it was weird for me to not be the youngest anymore, to have so many artists coaching and helping. They used to call me El Benjamin (youngest pupil) of the group.
Water is a theme in a lot of your pieces.
You mentioned in another interview how water is so interconnected in the Caribbean and that’s a lot of the reason why you make it a theme in your work. Can you expand on that for us?
If you ask anybody about the Caribbean region, the image that comes to mind right away, it’s water, it’s beautiful beaches … the illusion of paradise and all these things.
Besides the Caribbean and water, are there any other really important motifs in your work that you would like to expand upon?
To me, it’s like fragments, like a memory. You don’t remember things in a continuum. You remember fragments of things, no? My work is like that, a glimpse of things, a hint to an identity, to a culture, but within that, you will say, ‘Oh, wow, but those bodies are not really snorkeling. They look like the slaves. They look like people who were thrown overboard on (historic) transatlantic trips.’ You see these bodies in the water. And then when you really look a second time, you’re like, ‘Oh, they’re not really having a great time.’ So there’s something dark in my work. With the water pieces, there are many things going on: just straight abstractions, the waters and stories of color in particular ranges. They’re very pleasant, but in the same show, you will see something a little bit more complex.
Is there one overall message you’d like every viewer of your work to leave with?
I always say that the underlying theme of my work is hope. It’s about a sense of mystery and poetry. When people see my work, I hope that it makes them feel uplifted, even if my work is dealing with rough issues. Nowadays, the media and curators sometimes want to dictate things. They want to please everybody but art is nonconforming. You can’t please everybody. The work has to be strong. It has to be spectacular. Great work is great work. Sometimes it feels like people are trying to put together shows for reasons other than extraordinary art.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and concision. Want to learn more about Valdez? Tune in later this year for Hola Cultura’s new podcast, “Artistas in the Capital,” which will feature an expanded version of our conversation with the artist.
– Story by Barbara Weaver-Barros
– Interview conducted by SPEL’s Afro Latino and Arts and Humanities Teams
– Editing by Michelle Benitez and Piper Russell of SPEL’s Editing Team
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Julio is just julio very good at everything he does.