FALL 2022
Artist Talks
FALL 2022 Artist Talks
Vincent Valdez
Monday, November 21, 2022 | 6PM
Vincent Valdez is recognized for his monumental portrayal of the contemporary figure. His drawn and painted subjects remark on a universal struggle within various socio-political arenas and eras. He states, "My aim is to incite public remembrance and to impede distorted realities that I witness, like the social amnesia that surrounds me.” Valdez was born in 1977 in San Antonio, Texas. He received a full scholarship to study at the Rhode Island School of Design, and earned his BFA in 2000. A recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors (2016), as well as residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting (2005), the Vermont Studio Center (2011) and the Kunstlerhaus Bethania Berlin Residency (2014), Valdez currently lives and works in Houston. Exhibitions and Collections include: The Ford Foundation, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MassMOca, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and The National Portrait Gallery, among others. He is represented by David Shelton Gallery and Mathew Brown Los Angeles.
American, b. 1977
sTo Len
Monday, December 5, 2022 | 6PM
sTo Len is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has centered on collaborations with abused landscapes that have included printmaking polluted waterways, 3D scanning FreshKills landfill, recycling waste into art materials, and performing at Superfund sites. sTo Len is based in Queens, NY, with familial roots in Vietnam and Virginia, and his work incorporates these bonds by connecting issues of their history, environment, traditions, and politics.
A three-person panel of MGC Monitors
Vera (V) Tineo, Abigail Akindude, and Kyra Gregory
Monday,October 17, 2022 | 6PM
Kyra Gregory is a painter/printmaker/multimedia artist based in Queens, NY. They graduated from Princeton University in 2019 with a major in Visual Arts and certificate in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Kyra works primarily in woodcut relief and often uses their prints to construct print and painting-based collages. Their work is rooted in an existential search for self and community and driven by their personal experiences with queerness, mental illness, and spirituality.
Abigail Akindude is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the complexities of Black life. She uses her artwork to show different perspectives of the Black experience. Her work has touched on themes of trauma,mental health, poverty, race, black culture and womanhood. She draws inspiration from her own life experiences, and the stories she has been impacted by. In her multidisciplinary approach she uses clay, textiles, paint, glass, ink, hair, wood and found materials. Her techniques include handbuilding and pottery ceramics, printmaking, sewing, painting weaving and crochet/knitting. She intends to convey the complexities of black life, the different experiences of Black people, and how they are treated and seen in the world. Her art is also a form of activism showing the overlooked and forgotten stories of many Black people. She intends to create a visual narrative with contrasting forms, and textures to convey different feelings, experiences, and life.
Vera (V) Tineo