Andrea Kim Valdez
Andrea Kim Valdez is a Curator, Sculptor and iPad artist . She is a founder of the well-regarded Crouch End Open Studios, now celebrating its 20th anniversary and a Curator of numerous exhibitions at The Crouch End Gallery.
As a sculptor she has worked in a wide variety of materials including clay/plaster, ceramic, live edge acrylic sheet, wood, mixed media and installation. In 2023/4 her ceramic triptych “Embrace the Base” (1984) was exhibited at the Barbican Art Gallery in ” RE/SISTERS a Lens on Gender and Ecology”. She has exhibited widely and has work in private collections in the UK and abroad.
Drawing has always been an important part of her practice, both landscape, still life and the human figure. Her iPad drawing began in 2012 when a broken wrist coincided with David Hockney’s first iPad exhibition at the Royal Academy. The iPad moved her drawing into the realm of color and she developed her own distinctive style of work, creating archival inkjet images and also short ‘drawing’ videos, often of people/dancers in movement, which can be seen on https://www.youtube.com/@andreakimvaldez
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.