Rodrigo Valenzuela

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Rodrigo Valenzuela constructs narratives, scenes, and stories that point to the tensions found between the individual and social communities. He utilizes autobiographical threads to inform larger universal fields of experience. Gestures of alienation and displacement are both the aesthetic and subject of much of his work. Often using landscapes and tableaus with day laborers or himself, he explores the way an image is inhabited, and the way that spaces, objects and people are translated into images. Valenzuela’s work serves as an expressive and intimate point of contact between the broader realms of subjectivity and political contingency. Through his videos and photographs, he makes images that feel at the same time familiar yet distant. He engages the viewer in questions concerning the ways in which the formation and experience of each work is situated—how they exist in and out of place.

Valenzuela earned his MFA in Photo Media from the University of Washington in 2012 and his BFA from the University of Chile in 2014. Recent solo exhibitions include Upfor Gallery, Portland, OR; Klowden Mann Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Galerie Lisa Kandlhofer, Vienna, AT; Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS; David Shelton Gallery, Houston, TX; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago, CL; envoy enterprises, New York, NY. Recent group exhibitions include The Drawing Center, New York, NY; and Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA. Valenzuela recently participated in the Open Sessions at the Drawing Center, New York, NY. He was a Core Fellow at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from 2014-2016. He participated to several residencies including the Sculpture Space in New York, NY; and Light Works residency in Syracuse, NY. He was a recipient of Art Matters Grant (2016), New York, NY; Artist Trust’s Arts Innovator Award (2014); among others. Valenzuela's work is in the collections of the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA; Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY; and in several private collections. Rodrigo is an Assistant Professor at the UCLA, Department of Photography, in Los Angeles.

Rodrigo Valenzuela; Still Life No. 6, 2014; archival pigment print on Dibond; 43 1/2 x 43 1/2 in.
Rodrigo Valenzuela; Prole No. 2, 2015; archival pigment print on Dibond; 22 x 22 in.
Rodrigo Valenzuela: Animita No. 2, 2016; archival pigment print on Dibond, artist frame; 44 x 30 in.
Rodrigo Valenzuela: Animita No. 5, 2016; archival pigment print on Dibond, artist frame; 44 x 30 in.
Rodrigo Valenzuela; Hedonic Reversal V, 2015; archival pigment print on Dibond; 54 x 44 in.
Rodrigo Valenzuela; Hedonic Reversal XVI, 2015; archival pigment print on Dibond; 54 x 44 in.
Rodrigo Valenzuela; The Projects No. 2, 2015; archival pigment print on Dibond; 34 x 42 in.