Shalene Valenzuela

I create ceramic sculptures that reflect on a range of social and cultural issues through a thoughtful, often humorous and ironic lens. I reproduce everyday objects primarily through slip casting and activate their surfaces with hand-painted imagery. Through these works, I explore themes of feminism, impossible beauty standards, consumerism, politics, environmental concerns, and the broader whitewashing of American culture and lived experience. I employ trompe l’oeil techniques not only to visually deceive the viewer, but to draw them more deeply into the narratives embedded within the work. By reinventing familiar objects in clay, I play with the notion that things are not what they initially appear to be. Materials behave against expectation. What should be soft becomes rigid while what should be heavy and indestructible becomes fragile and precious. Though the referenced object remains recognizable, the illustrated surface complicates its meaning, layering critique and storytelling onto the form itself.

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