About Valentina

Bio:

Valentina was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. At the age of eight her family immigrated to the United States and landed in sunny Daytona Beach, Florida. In 2019 she received her BFA in Ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute with a certificate in Social Practice. Her work explores the nuances of growing up as an immigrant while balancing the influences that American and Uruguayan cultures had on her views of materialism, religion, pop culture, and politics. 

Artist Statement:

A great deal of my inspiration is gathered from the personal experiences I’ve had growing up in America, and the memories I have of my first eight years in Uruguay. I am fascinated with both cultures’ obsession with money, material objects, and the way people relate wealth to happiness and a higher social status. I primarily use ceramic recreations of luxury objects to convey the power a material item can hold on the image and social position of an individual. They are my satirical observation of the photogenic “American Dream” that was marketed to me as an immigrant child in both Uruguay and the United States, incorporating both the traditional and contemporary ideals of the countries I call home.