Rodrigo Valenzuela
September 5-26, 2015
Rodrigo Valenzuela, Conceal Market No. 4, 2015, Archival pigment print
Rodrigo Valenzuela
Valenzuela constructs narratives, scenes, and stories which point to the tensions found between the individual and communities. I utilize autobiographical threads to inform larger universal fields of experience. Gestures of alienation and displacement are both the aesthetic and subject of much of Valenzuela’s work. Often using landscapes and tableaus with day laborers or himself, Valenzuela 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, Valenzuela makes images that feel at the same time familiar yet distant. Valenzuela 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.
Rodrigo Valenzuela was born in Chile and now lives and works in Seattle, Washington. He earned his BFA in Art History/Photography from the University of Chile, Santiago in 2004, his BA in Philosophy from Evergreen State College in 2010, and his MFA in PhotoMedia from the University of Washington in 2012.
