Art & Life with Cynda Valle

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cynda Valle.

Cynda, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I chronicle human life from the unique perspective of this time, this culture and place, and my own personal viewpoint within it. From this vantage point, I find the most ordinary moments of the most ordinary domestic circumstances to be infused with undercurrents of surrealism, luminosity and pattern that always remind me of the fragile poignancy of life. I try to “catch” and freeze these moments on canvas with oil paint.

REVIEWS

“Valle uses her creative magic to conjure up the difficult reality of vulnerable, physical being and material circumstance into a bearable, sometimes wryly humorous, even joyful fabrication… She blends her delightful, quirky imagination with solid art historical and cultural savvy, and with the sheer technical skill needed to keep these flights airborne.” Peter Clothier for ARTnews.

“Valle’s paintings never fail to evoke the sense of an alternate universe pulsating below the surface of a mundane reality…Valle creates scenes that are charged with a potent combination of menace and magic.” Elizabeth Forst for AMERICAN ARTIST.

BIOGRAPHY

Cynda Valle has been oil painting daily for 45 years. She believes there is a craft involved in good painting that requires a lifetime of practice to perfect; if people think her work is the result of some special talent she will remind them of those 40+ years of singleminded practice and devotion.

Cynda emerged onto the art scene in Los Angeles in the 80’s, living and working from her downtown studio (Globe Tire building). Her first one-person show in Los Angeles was at Couturier Gallery (1990).

After a 20 year stint of child rearing in rural norcal (Mendocino County)she returned to LA and lives/works at the Los Angeles artists brewery. She is represented by Art on 5th, Austin, TX. She has an extensive national exhibition record including; Art on 5th (Austin Texas) Manhattan Beach art center, SFMOMA Artist’s Gallery, Grace Hudson Museum (Ukiah, CA), Long Beach Museum of Art, The Lobby at The United Nations, Armory Arts Center (West Palm Beach , FL), Riverside Art Museum, Couturier Gallery (Los Angeles), Barnsdall Municipal Art Gallery (Los Angeles), LeBand Art Gallery (Loyola Marymount Univ.)and the Cultural Arts Center (Las Vegas, NV), to name a few. Cynda Valle’s work has been reviewed in American Artist magazine, ARTnews Magazine, Mixed Media Magazine and Scarlet Pink, The Los Angeles Times, Artweek , as well as numerous exhibition catalogues.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I like my paintings to give the viewer the sense of an alternate universe pulsating below the surface of this reality…I hope my paintings are charged with a potent combination of menace and magic.

I would classify myself as a Genre Painter, since my paintings are built using images and themes from my circumstances of the moment. My relocation to Los Angeles finds me painting the people and places that surround me now where I live and work at the Los Angeles brewery. I’m focusing on aspects of popular culture that have evolved unbeknown to me while I was living “off the grid” in northern rural California. At this moment I’m learning and painting what it is to be “non-binary” or “gender fluid”. I’m excited to meet this new kind of person. It feels like a time where men might finally get their own “liberation”, and be freed of some of the more rigid parameters and expectations of what it is to be an American Male. To me it feels like a repeat of some of the ideals of the 60’s, hopefully this time they’ll stick!

How do you think about success, as an artist, and what quality do you feel is most helpful?
My most successful work is the painting that evolves into one that tell s me something about myself that I didn’t already know and moves me in directions much more interesting than where I THOUGHT I was going.. When this starts to happen I experience the most wonderful sensation of becoming the medium, rather than the author of the work. The painting starts to direct me, rather than the other way around. This is a truly heady sensation, one that, more than any other, feeds my soul and gives me the reason to paint. In order for this to happen, I have had to develop faith that the process will work, and that faith gives me the tenacity and patience I need to sit and simply look, no matter how long it takes for the “Muse” to speak.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
BREWERY ART WALK In April and October; over 100 artists open their studios, free with food and drink to purchase.

Art on 5th (Ao5), Represents me in Austin Texas.

Arrange a studio visit (cyndavalle.com)

On FB: Cynda Valle (profile), Cynda Valle Rogers (page).

cyndavalle on Deviantart.

Instagram: cyndavalleartist.

Website: cyndavalle.com.

For information about CMSA (offering instruction in traditional oil painting techniques) go to cyndavalle.com and click on “Private Instruction.”

Contact Info:

• Address: The Los Angeles Artists Brewery
• Website: cyndavalle.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: cyndavalleartist
• Facebook: cynda valle rogers
• Other: cyndavalle at Deviantart

Image Credit:
Cynda Valle

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