Resonator is proud to welcome Texas-based artist Paul Valadez for a one-night-only art event.

Paul Valadez grew up in Stockton, California and moved to San Francisco to pursue an art career. He earned his bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary art from the San Francisco Art Institute and his master’s in studio art from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill where he was awarded a Weiss Fellowship for Urban Livability. Valadez is a professor in the Art department at the University of ​Texas, Rio Grande Valley, located ​at the U.S. Mexican border.

Paul will be displaying work and performing his piece: My Potlatch Project.

“This performance is a meta-conceptual artwork. A "Potlatch" is a form of cultural appropriation that is separated from original meaning.  I have performed this project at the following institutions: Nevada Museum of Art, The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) Gallery of Art and The Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art (AMoCA)”

“I was born in California in a Mexican American Family. I find that certain individuals tend to label me and my work; I have been called a Hispanic, Chicano, Latino, Mexican-American, Californian, Texan, but rarely just an American Artist. Any label, for an artist, is not bad; I identify myself as a Proud Mexican-American. The difficulty arises when viewers see a label and associate it with a certain “type” of art production.”

-Paul Valadez