Paul Valadez Collection

Paul C. Valadez was born in California in 1965. He is a mixed media artist currently working as an Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in the U.S./Mexico border. He earned his Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Art from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1997. In 2003, he graduated from the University of North Carolina with his Masters of Fine Arts in Studio Art, where he was also awarded the Weiss Fellowship for Urban Livability. Valadez's work is inspired by his childhood and language, as well as his upbringing in a bicultural family. He uses acrylics, text, and found paper to create his work. More recently, Valadez's art has dealt with the concept of decolonization and identity. With his art, he hopes to "make art as a Mexican American artist that challenges the viewer's preconceived notions of what Mexican American Art can be."

His work was selected for The Serie Project in 2009, which was an artist residency program for serigraphy in Austin, Texas. Also in 2009, his art was featured in the Texas Biennial, which provides an exhibition opportunity open to all artists living and working in Texas. Valadez has had 33 solo exhibitions in museums such as the University of Arizona Museum of Art, Nevada Museum of Art and at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Tamaulipas in Mexico, and has also been part of group exhibitions at the Latino Art Museum Pomona, La Salle University Art Museum, Masur Museum of Art, and Mexic-Arte Museum among others. He also had a members only performance art piece held at The Cheech in California in 2023 titled "Giving Away Mexican Food at the Cheech Museum Opening". Other museums have his work in their permanent collections, such as the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, LaSalle University Art Museum, University of Northern Iowa, Butler Institute of American art, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Faulconer Gallery, Grinnel College, USC Fisher Museum of Art, the Mexico City Fundacion Cultural, Trabajadores de Pascual y del Arte A.C., among others.

His lifetime art project, titled "My Potlatch Project", is a "conceptual art piece/performance artwork [based] on the idea of giving art away, or the idea of 'generosity as selfishness'". Valadez embraces the practice held by the Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America of "potlatch," which is a gift-giving feast or ceremony that involves giving away or destroying valuables as a demonstration of wealth and power. These ceremonies also focused on reaffirmation of family and human connection through shared kindness and generosity that would benefit everyone. Though Valadez notes that his project is "ultimately in an artistic context separated from [its] original meaning." As part of this performance art project, the artist donates his work to institutions with no strings attached. Valadez started this performance piece so that he could exist as an artist outside of the system and in the face of many obstacles, including being rejected from galleries and museums. His donation to the Benson Latin American Collection is a part of this performance.

Biographical information compiled together with the help of the artist.