(Dominican Republic, b. 1969)

Water imagery, in particular, the luminous water of the Caribbean, pervades Julio Valdez’s art. Valdez has stated that “for an island man, water is both a blessing and a curse.” Rather than landscapes, Valdez’s water paintings are an immersive environment in which the artist explores abstract spatial ambiguities:  distortions of distance, size, and luminosity. Concurrently, Julio Valdez’s paintings are also investigations of personal and collective history.