Press

“El Chavez Ravine”

A UFO hovers in the sky in an attempt to warn La Raza down below about the impending destruction of their barrio as a skeleton construction worker begins to bulldoze their homes. this may sound like a scene straight out of a Robert Rodriguez sci-fi flick, but it’s not. It’s the image depicted on the [...]

“Westside/Southside story”

Their story is often told in the local arts scene, details of it sometimes slipping into the territory of urban legend. It was 20 years ago last week that a 19-year-old Alex Rubio took 10-year-old Vincent Valdez under his wing, after naming Valdez the winner of an elementary-school poster contest. The prize: [...]

“Drive to Distraction”

Vincent Valdez thought it should be simple enough. The job: Retelling the nasty land-grab saga of Chavez Ravine, with all its vivid twists and turns, in all of its lurid hues. The story was shot through with themes that the young artist often revisited in his work: class and race, haves and have-nots, history and [...]

“Out of the Shadows”

L.A.’s Eastside looks and feels much like the San Antonio neighborhood where Vincent Valdez grew up. Both have the same funky Mexican-American sensibility—mom-and-pop businesses,taco stands on seemingly every corner, and ranchera music blaring from bars. The similarities explain why the young artist feels comfortable in Boyle Heights, where for the past couple of years he [...]

“Vincent Valdez Paints The Soul Of Those Who Live In Uncertain Times”

A photo shows a skinny kid in a stairwell looking down at the viewer, dwarfed by a huge mural of two soldiers in camouflage crawling through Vietnamese bush. The painting is sure, with hands and faces fully articulated. The boy has eyes from another age, an ancient, calm, beatific stare. Look again at the work. [...]

“Battle of Chavez Ravine”

His Kill the Pachuco Bastard! is one of the most recognizable and stunning works of recent contemporary Chicano art, a lucid, violent painting depicting the L.A. Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. But Vincent Valdez, a 28-year-old artist, is not from L.A. He’s from “San Anto” — San Antonio. And he just moved here.
In a way, [...]

“Technical knockout”

When Vincent Valdez was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, he would get together with a group of friends to box on weekends.
In a fight poster Valdez made up at the time, he mockingly dubbed himself “El Pollo the Great.”
“It was really for our entertainment,” says Valdez. a slight, wiry 26-year-old. “I [...]

“Artists in show find inspiration in peers”

Creating artwork for “Drawing from Memory/Reality,” an exhibition by Vincent Valdez and Juan Ramos, ” has ended up feeling like we’re curating a show,” Ramos says.
That’s because their combined efforts resulted in a collection of artists’ portraits. The show, which opens at 6 tonight at Joan Grona Gallery in the Blue Star Arts Complex, continues [...]