Narrator, 2013, aquatint, etching
25 x 12 inches

Juana Valdes’ most current work elicits migration as a complex process, constructing history through a continuum that involves both the home-space of the diasporic community along with their new homeland. Juana examines the post-colonial history of the Americas and the current representation of Latinos, Caribbean citizens, Blacks or what the current “Other” is in vogue in mainstream America, reflecting on what is ascribed, contested, and granted. This ethno-social exploration serves as the raw material for her aesthetic and formal investigation, as it circumscribes issues of transmutation via the everyday object, as a personal and time-based reference that is diachronic in orientation.

The dynamism of Juana’s work is vested in the transition from sculpture to installation to performance, thereby shifting fields, and exchanging modes of visual recognition. She holds in balance such questions as “where and what is the art in art?” and “when does it separate from daily life?” The final outcome speaks to contemporary controversies and tensions, which explore issues of personal identity and one’s role in multiple collectives. Her work integrates the socio-political discourse within the art object to analyze relationships between contemporary and historical imagery, their connection to the social, political, and economical dominance of the cultures that produce them and their impact on cultural memory.

As a multi-disciplinary artist Juana Valdes’ work traces, recollects, and records her own personal experience of migration. Her artwork is informed by her Afro-Cuban ethnicity and the experience of growing up in America. She was born in Cabañas, Pinar Del Rio, Cuba and came to the United States in 1971. Juana currently teaches as an Assistant Professor of Printmaking at Florida Atlantic University in the Visual Arts and Art History Department.

Juana Valdez website