Biography

Kaiden Valenzuela (they/them) was born and raised in southern Oregon. They received their bachelor of fine arts and are now pursuing a career as a freelance artist. Kaiden’s art practice consists of painting and drawing, with a focus on acrylic, watercolor, and colored pencil mediums. Through their work, they investigate different mental states represented by narratives and symbolic figures. Creating art as an autistic person, they view their work as a way to connect with others in a way that expands beyond verbal language. It is within this space that the true self is revealed, outside of our bodies and deep within our minds. They hope to meet you there.

Artist Statement

“I Am All of Me” is a collection of works that uses both representational and abstracted landscape self-portraits to examine and exhibit aspects of myself and my past that I find difficult to explain with words. In lieu of the taxing and vulnerable nature of verbal conversation, I create visual narratives that capture my traumas, secrets, and moments of self-reflection. These paintings explore situations of anxiety and despair, the subject presented in an ambivalent state between life and death, their pain unfolding in a frozen, precarious moment. It is within these pieces that I allow myself to reveal my ideations and fantasies of letting go while simultaneously, viciously, proving that I am alive within the act of creation. 

I want to tell you so badly, but that would be too easy.

Wouldn’t it?