Week 7: Patssi Valdez

Patssi Valdez. Farewell, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 49 x 36 in.

One of the images that I will be discussing in my presentation is Farewell, 2006, by Patssi Valdez. Valdez was one of the founding members and only woman in the chicano 'punk art' group Asco in the 1970's. Her later paintings differ a lot from her work with Asco , the sort of take on a life of their own. In this particular paint, Valdez brings us into an intimate space and gives the illusion of motion while in it. She does this to convey the energetic vibration of the room, in an interview with the LA Times she mentions that after she went to therapy she began to heal and projected what she was feeling onto these paintings. She understood that the self work needed to be internal which pushed her to start painting rooms because the rooms were real places where she's existed and where dark emotions were felt. She is a very colorful artist in that most of her painting are bright and full of color which I feel brings life and an intriguing aspect to her swirls and motion-full images. This painting brings a sense of sorrow, its like you're sitting with the trauma and darkness of your mind but you're not necessarily scared, you're kind of watching it(the pain) rather than feeling it, allowing you to heal from it.