The City II

"The City II" (2016), depicts a pile of mattresses amidst discarded trash next to a smoking steel drum. According to the artist, this painting is a symbolic representation of "The City I." Reminiscent of Spanish painter Francisco Goya’s early nineteenth-century depictions of mounds of corpses, it metaphorically suggests that the city—and by extension, American society at large—continues to be in limbo. Beginning in the fall of 2015, Valdez worked for nearly a year to complete his "City" paintings. The scenes they depict are invented, but as the Texas artist points out, this underscores their continued relevance and ubiquity: “This could be any city in America. These individuals could be any Americans. There is a false sense that these threats were, or are, contained at the peripheries of society and in small rural communities. . . . It is possible that they are city politicians, police chiefs, parents, neighbors, community leaders, academics, church members, business owners, etcetera. This is the most frightening aspect of it all.” "The City I" and "The City II" can be understood as contemporary history paintings. Instead of responding to or commemorating a specific event, Valdez examines American history through a wider lens, looking at the ways that the past continues to inform the present. In doing so, he enters into dialogue—direct and indirect—with centuries of artists, writers, and musicians who have dealt with questions of identity, fear of the “other,” and the threat of violence. The inscription found in the lower-right corner, “For GSH and PG,” reveals two sources that helped inspire the work: Gil Scott-Heron’s powerful 1980 song, “The Klan,” and Philip Guston’s "City Limits," a 1969 painting of cartoonish Klansmen that captivated Valdez when he saw it in an exhibition at the Blanton in 2015. “I am interested in the idea of this subject spanning three artists of diverse backgrounds and different generations,” Valdez explains. “How many more generations of American artists will need to tackle the subject of the Klan?“