Alamo Colleges District announced its first ever artist-in-residence for the 2025-26 academic year: San Antonio native Vincent Valdez.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Valdez is a nationally and internationally recognized artist whose paintings and murals have landed him exhibitions at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and The National Portrait Gallery, among others.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to engaging with the Alamo Colleges District community, faculty, and students,\u201d\u00a0 Valdez said in a statement. \u201cThis partnership offers an important opportunity \u2014 an exchange of ideas, personal stories, social histories, in a moment when building community and supporting our youth matters most.\u201d<\/p>\n
The yearlong residency program is a product of the recently formed Alamo Colleges District Visual and Performing Arts Commission. It will include classroom visits, guest lectures and studio visits for students throughout the five community colleges <\/strong>\u2014 San Antonio College, Palo Alto College, Northwest Vista College and Northeast Lakeview College.\u00a0<\/p>\n It will also involve public events, including an exhibit featuring new pieces that are scheduled to be shown this summer, as well as a keynote presentation at the district\u2019s Visual and Performing Arts Summit scheduled for April.\u00a0<\/p>\n This yearlong residency is piloting an idea that had been explored for a couple of years, ahead of the district\u2019s 80th anniversary<\/a>, said Alamo Colleges District Chancellor Mike Flores.<\/p>\n The program comes at a total cost of $35,000, and was funded in part by a $6,300 grant awarded to Alamo Colleges by the Texas Commission for the Arts.<\/p>\n \u201cWho better to be that inaugural artist than Vincent Valdez,\u201d Flores said. \u201cA San Antonian that is widely known and respected, who graduated from [Luther] Burbank High School in SAISD, and who became very successful and recognized with collections here in San Antonio, throughout the United States and globally.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In his biography, Valdez points to his style of blending large, representational paintings, such as those used in Western traditional murals, to depict contemporary subjects.\u00a0<\/p>\n His work depicts what can be perceived as hard truths about our society, such as a recent exhibit for the Art League of Houston \u2014 which named him 2023 Artist of the Year<\/a>. The installation, titled Siete Dias, featured banners showcasing portraits of some of the thousands of people from Central and South America whose disappearances have made it into archives. \u00a0<\/p>\n