Statement
Valerie Wilcox’s “Constructs," present a reimagined, abstracted understanding of our constructed environment and how our brain works to piece together diverse elements. She uses common and salvaged materials to intuitively impose harmony on elements that may not be naturally susceptible to it. Her works consistently explore contradictions and uneasy associations between indefinable shapes, marks and the activity of painting. These assembled hybrid objects become her canvas and manage to transcend their base materiality, as her source materials are elevated and imbued with a newness of form and aesthetic. 

 

Wilcox’s practice combines the geometries of Minimalism with the spontaneous spirit of the New Casualists. Her works are always distinguishable by their unorthodox and joyful approach to color and form.

 

Her working process incorporates the ideals of Wabi Sabi. This
aesthetic is centered on the acceptance and beauty of transience and imperfection. It refers to quirks and anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness and elegance to both natural and man-made objects. The visible evidence of the maker’s hand, the odd assembly and disjointed mechanics in the works reveal her process and addresses our ideals of perfection versus inherent human fallibility. She embraces the mistakes and gives them a new life, with bits and pieces that appear as if they were casually cobbled together, off-kilter and with an imperfect resolution.

 

She likes pushing a surreal quality in her work. Ambiguous and quirky shapes hover between a two-dimensional plane and a three-dimensional structure, often nuanced by the effects of light and shadow, thus playing with the idea of space and perception, but not necessarily the reality of it.

Wilcox's Constructs at once become referential, whimsical and self-reflexive. It has often been said that her work feels like poetry– subtle, nuanced and open to interpretation.

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Bio

Valerie Wilcox is originally from San Diego, CA and moved to Los Angeles to receive her BFA in Graphic Design from Cal State University Long Beach. She continued her fine art studies at Otis College of Art & Design and Art Center College of Design and currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

 

Wilcox has been included in many local and international exhibitions including the Torrance Art Museum, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Irvine Fine Arts Center, Mount Saint Mary’s University, Palo Alto Art Center, QiPO Art Fair in Mexico City, Kölner Liste Art Fair in Cologne; Galleries in Wuppertal and Berlin, Germany and Brisbane, Australia. She completed a three week residency through Hangman Projects in Stockholm, Sweden and showed in the subsequent exhibition there. Her work is collected internationally and in corporate collections including the Hyatt and Marriot hotels. She recently completed a large commission for the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego.

 

Wilcox has been published in the NY Times T Style Magazine, The Huffington Post, Coolibri Magazine in Germany, Veranda Magazine, Saatchi Art, Art Nerd in San Francisco, DiversionsLA and Art and Cake.