OCHI is pleased to participate in the 8th edition of the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) New York art fair, returning to the Lower East Side May 5 through 8, 2022 at Pier 36. The gallery will feature a solo presentation of new large-scale paintings and ceramic works by multi-disciplinary Oakland-based artist Anna Valdez.

Anna Valdez examines the relationship between objects, cultural formation, and collective consciousness. Assembling epic tableaux in her studio, Valdez moves seamlessly between still life and landscape painting, as she crafts dense scenes saturated with plants, books, skulls, textiles, vases, ephemera, and her own sculptures and paintings. The resulting works resemble installations, feeling both self-referential and boundless. A once aspiring anthropologist and self-proclaimed unreliable narrator, Valdez creates multiple realities, perspectives, and portals within her paintings, often including depictions of her ceramics. Valdez paints the layers of reality with ease—an object, its representation, its abstraction, and its bibliography all coexisting.

Valdez (b. 1985, Sacramento, CA) received her MFA in painting from Boston University in 2013, and her BA in Anthropology and Art from University of California, Davis in 2009. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR; North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC; and New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, CT. Valdez’s works are held in various public and private collections including the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL and the Phyllis & Ross Escalette Permanent Collection of Art at Chapman University, Orange, CA and her work has been featured in Artillery, Hyperallergic, Juxtapoz, Artforum, and other publications. Valdez is represented by OCHI in Los Angeles, CA and Sun Valley, ID.