Born in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles in 1951, John Valadez started his artistic career in the 70s working collaboratively with other Chicano artists on mural projects for the United Farmworkers, as well as murals for the production of Zoot Suit and the City of Los Angeles. At this time he founded, along with Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero and Richard Duardo, the Public Arts Center in Highland Park to provide studio space for these projects. While many of his comrade’s works reflected qualities of the Mexican muralists, Valadez developed a more realist approach and chose as his subjects; storefronts on Broadway, people on the streets, and random violence.
In 2008
the artist presented a body of pastel work at Craig Krull Gallery entitled Tales of Oceana. The imagery took a mythical turn by depicting Latinos on the beach and in the ocean encountering phantasmal creatures such as toothy whales and enormous sea serpents. Valadez admits that he has always drawn and painted the ocean. His passion was partially born of boyhood memories of bodysurfing, tales of Captain Cook and Moby Dick, and the great unknown that the ocean depths still represent. As the critic Max Benevidez observed, these pastels take their cue “from stories of sea monsters, strange nautical encounters, and those unspoken desires that swirl up from the foamy recesses of our minds.”
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