Artist name : Kyunghee Valdez
Exhibition : Faith In Light
Media : Copper
Gallery : CSULB School of Art, Gatov Gallery West
Website : N/A
Instagram : N/A
Kyunghee Valdez is a student in the School of Art’s 3D Media program. Valdez moved to California from south korea to pursue her education in the united states, in my conversation with Ms. Valdez she expressed her heartfelt passion for learning and for art and despite being an older student she still loves to learn. Like many artist her passion for art started young with drawing, so much so that she would constantly be drawing for her grade school classmates and teachers. Eventually as she continued to draw she began to realize she had a creative block when drawing from her imagination and although her technical skill in drawing was excellent she struggled with the creative process. As Ms. Valdez continued in her studies of art she eventually stumbled into taking a stone carving class where she fell in love working with 3D media.
This piece, Faith in light, is primarily focused on texture and shape being devoid of color variation. It’s cylindrical in shape with the base and lid coming out slightly farther than the body of the cylinder. All of the cuts made in this piece are hand cut and wavy, giving the edges a rough but not sharpe texture. It feels as if it had been sanded down just enough so as to not be sharpe. The copper material itself is smooth with tiny indentations in it to give it more texture and make it more eye catching. The piece itself is a candle holder and so the cuts in the copper body allow the light to pass through the bowed out space creating a pleasant shadowing effect with the candle light.
When I asked Ms. Valdez what this piece meant to here she said it represented sacrifice. She then showed me her hands and how nearly every finger was wrapped in a bandaid after nicking herself on the sharp metal edges. The relation being just as the candle inside the piece has to sacrifice itself so that it can produce light, so did she have to sacrifice herself so that she might make something beautiful. Ms. Valdez then related how this piece was only her second time ever working with copper and how her inexperience and ambition with this piece caused her to spend so much of her time and effort to create it. However, instead of being frustrated with the time she had to sacrifice to work the copper into submission she was ecstatic about her ability to learn and improve through her mistakes. She related how she had faith she would improve and believed she her sacrifice would make something worthwhile, hence the name, Faith in Light.
The art itself was nice to look at and I enjoyed how it both held practical utility while still looking beautiful. I hadn’t thought about all the time and effort and sacrifice that was needed to make the piece. However, as I talked with the artist I was surprised by depth this piece held for the artist, and I’m pleased I had the chance to talk to such and interesting person. The idea that you have to sacrifice part of yourself, to create something very much resonated with what I myself think. There’s something very personal about something that you make yourself and I think that’s because you do give up part of yourself whenever you create. You have some skin in the game so to speak and it isn’t just a phenomenon for when you create but when you give your time and effort to anything you lose part of yourself to gain something new.
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