Window View and a Hanging Prayer, 2020, oil and acrylic on hardboard panel, 46 x 46 in. (116.8 x 116.8 cm)
Anna Valdez is a multi-disciplinary artist who examines the relationship between objects, cultural formation, and collective consciousness. Creating an epic tableaux in her studio, Valdez moves seamlessly between still life and landscape painting as she collects objects and makes new ones—throwing, firing, and glazing new ceramic vessels inspired by ideas for paintings, new plants or taxidermy, recent trips, or works in progress. Toggling between collection, creation, observation, and fictionalization, Valdez works with saturated hues and surprising scale shifts to communicate an abstract temporality. Layering the personal with the historical in dense compositions that collapse foreground and background, Valdez’s compositions resemble immersive installations.