A Painter’s Great Escape

For nearly two decades, Patssi Valdez has been defining and redefining herself. From the late 1970s to the mid-’80s, Valdez formed part of a group at the forefront of Chicano art. Collaborating with Gronk, Willie Herron and Harry Gamboa Jr., they made their mark through murals, street theater and photography, challenging the traditional image of Latin culture in the United States.

As the years passed, Valdez has transformed her work from abstract ideas of Chicanismo to a painfully honest examination of herself and her immediate surroundings through painting.

She now appears to be at a breakthrough moment. She just received notice of a $25,000 grant from the Durfee Foundation, one of three L.A.-based artists to be honored. And for the first time a museum survey of Valdez’s work is being presented in Southern California. The exhibition, scheduled for April 24 through July 11 at the Laguna Art Museum, includes a survey of her paintings and some photographs dating from 1980 to 1997.

Currently on display in San Francisco’s Mexican Museum, Valdez’s show is called “A Precarious Comfort”--an apropos title for a woman who has struggled with some mighty inner demons for most of her life.

She has grown from East Los Angeles Chicano-rights performance artist to an introspective painter whose sadness and torment laced her canvases, to a woman coming to peace with herself, her work and her life through her painting.

“I was confused and unhappy about the way things were around me,” she said from her home in Echo Park, reflecting on her life as a young Chicana growing up in East L.A. “But that was the past. The great thing is that you can come out through the other side. You can transcend things. If I changed, anyone can.”

In her earlier paintings, such as “What Happened?” from 1991, Valdez painted a picture of an unsettled dining room scene in vibrant reds, blues and yellows. The chairs are restless, seemingly dancing around the table. The blood-red wine has spilled from the glasses while three red candles burn brightly, as if they had witnessed a violent discussion around the dining table.

Now, in works like her 1997 painting “Saturday,” Valdez’s image of a sitting room uses lighter tones, and the chairs and table are set comfortably in front of a large bay window. Outside is a view of a tranquil sea with sailboats leisurely navigating along. “I’m softening up now. I think those really hard edges and strong emotions are being resolved,” she said. “The reds aren’t as red. The windows are opening up more. You can see the outside.”

She is an artist who is not afraid to evolve and challenge herself with new ideas while still retaining the essence of her personality in her work, said Andrew Connors, associate curator of the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution, which purchased Valdez’s painting “The Magic Room.”

“There are artists who establish a type of work and never move from that,” Connors said. “Patssi has not done that. She has now evolved into a different style of painting. That is a sign of an interesting and an interested artist.”

It took a long time for Valdez to reach this point of calm and artistic maturity. Born in East Los Angeles to what she describes as a dysfunctional family, Valdez, her sister and mother came to rely on each other for support.

Valdez’s father, who died when the artist was in her 20s, was an abusive man who left the family when the girls were young, Valdez said. Her mother, Joan, attended night school and worked full time to support her two daughters.

“From a very early age, I wanted to be famous, and I wanted to make history,” she said. “Later on I realized that my art could get me out of the neighborhood. I used to say, ‘I’m going to paint my way out of this place.’ ”

Despite this acquired self-assurance, Valdez was painfully shy as a young girl and had a curious reaction when one of her first paintings was noticed in elementary school.

“I remember people were making a big fuss over it,” she said. “I was a very quiet and shy girl, and to get that kind of attention scared me. So I actually took the picture and threw it away.”

But in high school, thanks to a dedicated art teacher, Valdez began thinking of art as a profession.

During the tumultuous ‘70s, Valdez became active in the Chicano rights movement. As a 17-year-old Garfield High School student, Valdez participated in the 1968 Chicano “blow-outs,” when students walked out of school in protest. Two years later, while taking classes in theatrical makeup at East L.A. College, Valdez, Gronk, Herron and Harry Gamboa formed ASCO (a word in Spanish meaning disgust that the artists also translated as “nausea”), a performance-art group.

Each member of the group focused on different aspects of his or her experience as Chicanos. Herron dealt with police brutality and life in the barrio, primarily as a muralist, while Gronk and Gamboa portrayed international and national political issues in paintings and photography respectively. Valdez explored the concept of glamour and self-identity in the shadow of Hollywood’s ideal of feminine beauty in her performance art and photography.

She continued to paint off and on, in addition to creating one-of-a-kind paper shoes and clothing for her models with fellow artist Diane Gamboa. She attended Otis Parsons School of Design in 1981 to better understand the technical aspects of her profession.

Valdez also became a muse for the other artists. In those early photographs of Valdez, taken mainly by Gamboa, she is draped in glamorous costumes, wearing severe makeup in avant-garde poses. The message in the images of pride and determination combined with anxiety and alienation became symbolic of the Chicano experience.

“I wanted to make statements about my environment,” Valdez said. “What I wanted to show was that we didn’t just join gangs and were lazy and ignorant--that some of us are actually quite beautiful and bright and talented and that we were capable of anything, just like anyone else.”

Her career as a performance artist and photographer continued until the late 1980s, when she began painting full time.

Initially it was a struggle.

“I had like 10 emotions and tried to put them in one painting, and I would over-mix the paints,” she said. “I would make a big glob of mud. But I never gave up.”

Performance art was a good way to express several different emotions at the same time, but with painting, Valdez found focus was important. This led to a difficult period of self-examination during the mid- to late 1980s, where she began analyzing why she was so distracted and full of angst.

She went to healers and confronted the pain she had kept inside for so long. She realized the resentment and bitterness she had felt all her life kept her from expressing herself as a painter.

After several years of therapy, she sensed a change.

Suddenly, she could mix the paint. Her colors kept getting brighter and brighter--so much so that people would ask her if she bought special paint.

“When I saw the paintings, I was amazed,” said Tere Romo, curator of San Francisco’s Mexican Museum, who put the exhibition together. Romo said she was especially interested in the way Valdez seemed to give personality to the objects in her paintings, often using them as metaphorical self-portraits. “I was fascinated by her use of color and how she was able to express herself through the use of objects. She was always out there on the edge and taking a chance.”

Valdez’s current show, the first to present her art thematically and chronologically, is a narrative of her life, and a personal voyage. In her first paintings, her pain is brutally evident--as if her anguish had seeped into the paint.

In a 1988 self-portrait, “The Headache,” she is red-orange with green lips; a window next to her shows a dark-blue sky with violent clouds threatening.

In another self-portrait, “Little Girl With Yellow Dress” from 1995, Valdez is a young girl, her aura glowing like a halo of innocence. But beneath her feet, the cement is cracking, depicting the beginning of her unhappy, divisive family life.

Her latest work is more subdued. Just as her 1997 painting “Saturday” depicts domestic tranquillity, her 1996 painting “Tulips” shows this sense of serenity with blooming flowers in a crystal vase set on a mosaic table. Those intense migraines she suffered--sometimes for days at a time--have disappeared.

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Painting is one of the truest forms of expression for an artist, Valdez believes.

“Painting is so special because it is imbued with the person’s essence and the painter’s energy,” she said.

Valdez’s art has also always focused heavily on domestic scenes. To her, the home is an expression of one’s character--where objects are animated with a person’s spirit. It is also the place where the secrets of family life and personal introspection occur.

Her vision of home life sometimes has an aggressive vitality that turns former ideals of domestic quiet on their head, said the Smithsonian’s Connors.

“Throughout most American art history, [the home environment] tends to represent comfort and peace and security,” he said. “Patssi’s interiors are anything but that. That is something that is very emblematic of what is going on in the 20th century. We are constantly questioning where and what we are comfortable with.”

Added Romo: “Her home scenes are very much a metaphor for her own interior home and how she feels about herself. She is projecting her sense of home within herself, and it’s not always comfortable.”

Valdez’s work, which is represented by Patricia Correia Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, also has become popular among some in Hollywood. For Gregory Nava’s 1995 film “Mi Familia,” Valdez was hired to paint several works for the movie and assist in the production design. Nava said he was attracted to her use of strong colors and ability to give life to a room.

“The house is like a character in the movie,” Nava said. “I wanted it to be a living, breathing thing. The objects in the house give [the home] emotional meaning. Her art is profoundly moving. I love her sense of color and the quality of her imagery.”

Valdez’s maternal grandparents were from Michoacan, Mexico, and Catholic dogma and iconography have been an important influence. From her days as a performance artist, Valdez was interested in depicting virgins, queens and goddesses--important female figures in Latin American culture symbolizing beauty, strength and healing.

But here as well she has evolved, transforming the role of women in her paintings from tortured idols to examples of strength, said Romo.

“She has really eliminated the whole discourse of women having value because they suffer,” she said. “Her women are now more powerful, not suffering.”

Valdez was particularly moved by the Virgen Morena--the Virgin of Guadalupe who is the patron saint of Mexico. She wanted to emphasize the virgin’s dark features in sharp contrast to the porcelain-colored madonnas of classical European painters.

Her 1996 “Virgen de Guadalupe,” which she painted in reaction to the racial divisiveness in Los Angeles after the 1992 riots, shows the saint embracing Los Angeles’ downtown skyline as if protecting it from the outside world.

Her 1995 “Domestic Goddess” is a protector of the home--a place that has evolved from a dark, threatening area to a site of warm security, due to the goddess’ blessing.

“I made them women of color because that is what I am,” she said. “I was painting them to empower myself and my own culture.”

Even though she cites German Expressionist Max Beckmann as a painter she admires, she says she is not one to study other artists. Some of her coloring has been compared to that of Matisse, while her self-portraits, like “Self Portrait With Archangels,” are sometimes reminiscent of Frida Kahlo’s work. Valdez says she is flattered by comparisons to such artists, but maintains she only absorbs and interprets her surroundings.

“It is all very intuitive and natural. I don’t research much,” she said. “I am affected a lot by my environment.”

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Valdez’s show continues at San Francisco’s Mexican Museum until March 28 and moves to the Laguna Art Museum, April 24-July 11. 307 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach, (949) 494-6531. Valdez’s work will also be shown April 24-May 29 at the Patricia Correia Gallery at Bergamot Station, 2525 Mitch Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 264-1760.

More Paintings

* A gallery of paintings by Patssi Valdez can be viewed at Calendar Live! Point your browser to: https://www.calendarlive.com