Andrea Kim Valdez Sculptor, Curator and iPad Artist
As a Sculptor Andrea Kim Valdez has always drawn extensively and written and published articles about Art. Her drawing encompasses life drawing, landscape, movement and dance- and this had led to her current practice as an Ipad artist.
She is a founder of the well-regarded Crouch End Open Studios and curator of numerous exhibitions for Front Room Art at The Crouch End Gallery. She has exhibited widely and has work in private collections in the UK and abroad.
More about the Acrylic sculpture
The sculptures are designed using cardboard and paper, then the acrylic sheet is cut with a jigsaw. Recent work transferred the designs to a CAD program for laser cutting. This allows more complex shapes to be cut, and for the creations of editions of the sculptures, as well as a freedom in scale.
Design and cutting the sheet is followed by bending the work in various directions using a hot air torch, and assembly the pieces using a special glue (called Acrylic welding). Some sculptures are engraved, the engraved lines subtly catching the light along the surface.
The resulting work is highly original, colourful and delicate, and can be placed in natural light, under spotlights, or more adventurously, under ultraviolet spotlights.
How the Drawings are made
Ipad Apps allow images to be built up in layers from a variety of sources. Some, mostly in the first Las Amazonas series, include original photographs and pen and ink or pencil drawings made on visits to the Amazon.
Each layer on the iPad can be treated separately in terms of transparency, colour and relationship to the layers above or below. The final image is made from multiple layers – one layer being the drawing made directly on the Ipad. The final image will be the one amongst many possibilities that the artist has chosen to print.
Training and Awards
1991 Dip-AD Sculpture- Sir John Cass School of Art
1991 Owen Rowley Memorial Prize for the best work in the Final Year show.
1991 1st Prize in Sculpture Class for the Worshipful Company of Tin Plate Workers
Solo Exhibitions
2023 “Revisiting Resistance” at The Crouch End Gallery
2022 “The Great Wave of Plastic” Installation at The Crouch End Gallery
2018
Front Room Art Room for Wildlife
2017
Front Room Art Drawn in Light (iPad Drawings)
2016
Front Room Art On the Edge of Beauty
2013
NorthandSouthIdeas Gallery, Highgate– Wilderness
2012
The Crouch End Gallery Las Amazonas– ipad drawings and prints
Curation
2008
Hornsey Town Hall Exhibition including sculpture, site specific installation, film and sound
2009
Hornsey Original Gallery Curator and Exhibitor, Crouch End Open Studios
2007
Royal Academy Schools Gallery “Small is Beautiful” Curator and Exhibitor
2005
John Jones Gallery, Finsbury Park, London – Inaugural Exhibition Crouch End Open Studios
Group Exhibitions and Competitions
2023
Bainbridge Print Studios
2020
Virtual Gallery “Dance Continuum”
2016
Discerning Eye
Brazilian Embassy, Shortlisted for Ibero-American Arts Award
2015
Avondale Gallery “Paint and Pixels”
2014
ArtGemini – “Portrait of Albert Turpin”
The Crouch End Gallery ‘Albert Turpin in his Studio’
2013
Worcester Open
2011
Discerning Eye
Installation at Sandringham Gardens, London ‘Ecos de la Selva’
Art House, LJCC, Ivy House, London
2010
Installation in the Hornsey War Memorial, Park Rd, N8 “The Birth of the Innocents”
2009
Millinery Works Gallery, London “Contemporary British Art”
28 Redchurch Street, London E2 “Drawn Together”
2000
Sculpture Residency, Far North Queensland, Australia.
1998
Battersea Arts Centre “Art Select’
1997
Gillingham Open Art Exhibition
Jelly Leg’d Chicken Arts Gallery
1995
Millfield Summer Show and Open/Invitational Exhibition
Fletcher Challenge Ceramics Award Exhibition, Auckland, New Zealand
Salthouse Gallery, St Ives
1994
Battersea Art Fair
1993
National Society of Painters, Sculptors and Printmakers 60th Annual Exhibition