About

Patssi Valdez is a visual artist born and raised in East Los Angeles. She is a founding member of the avante garde art group Asco (1972-1982). As the only female member of Asco, Valdez’s wide artistic range–which includes performance art, conceptual art, installations, murals, fashion design, collage, photography, easel painting and set design–was crucial to the group’s role in expanding the definition of Chicana/o art into alternate creative realms that went beyond traditional media such as murals and posters. Asco’s artistic practice was both performative and conceptual, taking on various forms such as staged events and street performances. Her artistic contributions in ASCO challenged the dominant narrative of the Chicano Movement and Chicano Art to provide an expanded and contemporary vision of Chicana/o identity. Valdez received her BFA from Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and was named outstanding alumni in 1985. In her visual art practice, Valdez works to capture her internal world and spaces she both inhabits and re-imagines. Since the late 1980s Valdez has gone on to develop some of her most recognizable works, a body of images that are Neo-Expressionistic and Surrealistic in form and content and are both autobiographical while also pushing back on traditional depictions of American domesticity and Chicanismo. Her work has contributed to an ongoing Chicana feminist critique and examination of the sociopolitical reality of the Chicana/o community living in the United States. Valdez has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions such as: Les Démons Des Anges, Halle du Centre de Recherche pour le Développement Culturel, Nantes, France, 1989; A Precarious Comfort, The Mexican Museum, San Francisco, CA, 1999; ASCO No Movies, (Touring Exhibition 2013-2014) Nottingham Contemporary, UK, 2013; Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2017; and L.A. Memo Chicana/o Art 1972-1989, La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Los Angeles, 2022. Her work is highlighted in the newly inaugurated Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside, California, 2022. Her artwork is included in major collections including the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Valdez continues making art in her studio in Los Angeles.