| ABSTRACT : Born in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, Julio Valdez relocated to New York in 1993. Working between pluri-cultural sensibilities, Valdez infuses his work with multi-layered imagery as a response to the shifting cultural and social influences in his life. Julio Valdez is a painter, printmaker, teacher and mixed installation artist whose work has been exhibited internationally since 1984. He received training in oil painting and printmaking in both his native land and New York City, his longtime home where he now creates art that evokes the Caribbean region’s physical beauty and varied cultures. Early in his career, Valdez depicted Caribbean waters as a vehicle of migration, charged with the unsettling histories of slavery, imperialism, and mass tourism. His work evokes his Afro-Caribbean roots and references his childhood memories of the Caribbean, as well as contemporary issues of displacement and cultural identity. |