Julie Zener Gallery

Francisco Valverde (b. 1972) lives and works in Mexico City.  Valverde was raised in Cuernavaca, Mexico, of a Cuban father and Mexican mother. Early in his career, he was known for his work in contemporary figurative painting.

While teaching traditional techniques and large-format painting at Morelense Center for the Arts (Centro Morelense de las Artes), Francisco became inspired by his students’ search for their individual expression, which lead to his own quest for a new artistic practice. Francisco began working on large canvases, using bottle dispensers filled with colorful synthetic materials instead of traditional paints and brushes. His goal was to re-create the essential element within drawing and painting: the line. The resulting lines were imperfect and denied the traditional representative characteristic of a line, or what Francisco describes as “righteousness.” These paintings formed a rhythmic structure in which a certain order was realized. This was the start of his new direction.

Valverde’s pigmented resin works utilizes plastic materials to build complexity. These paintings utilize powerful lines with direction, suggestive backgrounds, mysterious forms, and varying depths to create a story. Obsession and freedom are two words that Francisco uses to describe his current work: the obsession of daily routine, and the freedom he experimented with as a child drawing and scribbling on a piece of paper for the very first time. He recognizes that perhaps a certain commitment to tradition survives in the smooth finishes of his paintings. These paintings also remind the artist of the colorful, shiny candies he used to eat as a child at local fairs. Passionate about public and urban art, Francisco recently participated in The Street Is Yours project in the State of Mexico. And, in 2015, the artist produced an urban intervention at the “SMART Art festival 2015” in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Francisco Valverde obtained a BA in Fine Arts at the University Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He has participated in numerous domestic and international solo and group exhibitions, and has been included in the 2004 and 2016 Rufino Tamayo Biennial at the Contemporary Museum Rufino Tamayo (Mexico City).

Below:  Installation Shots from  ‘Solace in Solitude’ A solo show by Francisco Valverde at the College of Marin Fine Arts Gallery presented by Julie Zener Gallery