THIS IS KIKI VALDES

Miami artist. Cartoonist at heart, painter by reputation. 
@kikivaldes
Magazine Posts Table of Contents

Visual Notes on the Wall

Posted 2024-09-22 15:36:00 | Views: 580
Some visual notes of mine tacked on the wall of my studio. Which one could you trust? Some of the strange figures are smoking cigars. This year's theme seems to be smoke. Told a gallery friend of mine that the smoke in my work in subtle way is about turmoil and war. He didn't see it. I hate being obvious with things, but perhaps I'm not obvious enough, or I get caught up in the ambiguity of a subject matter in art. That might be it. 

Guajiro Strangers

Posted 2024-08-20 11:37:13 | Views: 999
Whenever I paint in an instictive manner without much planning  I always seem drawn to the Guajiro. If you don't know what a Guajiro is, it's pretty much a Cuban farmer or cowboy. At least in my mind that's what it represents.  Many men in my family were Guajiros before they exiled over to the US. Most of them, if not all have already passed away. Growing up I saw little bits of proof of this former life from family. Often told in stories or by family members having a green thumb when it comes to growing trees and plants. In my mind I grab from the stories and a lost time and create them in strange portraits and other forms,  including landscapes that I recently started to experiment with. 
Photo on the right is of my grandfather Nene Ferrer back in the 1940's. 

Guajiros!!

Posted 2024-08-19 09:27:23 | Views: 1,069

July 2024 edible South Florida

Posted 2024-07-22 15:53:00 | Views: 1,301
I did the cover for the new issue of edible South Florida and it was released late last week. It's the summer Hot Dog issue and features an inside story by Sef Gonzalez aka Burger Beast. Make sure to pick it up at all Milam's Markets and in selected locations in all of South Florida. Let's go! 
Layout of "Hot Dog" article 
written by Sef Gonzalez 
Special thanks to edible South Florida and Sef for giving me the opportunity to do something different. I really cherish this form of collaboration  Many people don't know this but I got my start doing Zine covers for punk rock publications when I was a teenager. I really enjoyed this experience and in a way, it brought back fond memories.  Sincere thanks! 

One is a Cafetera drawing, the other is a Cafetera painting

Posted 2024-07-10 17:52:00 | Views: 1,600

Studio visit with Sophia

Posted 2024-07-10 09:28:41 | Views: 1,464

A little match. A little sugar.

Posted 2024-07-06 16:31:00 | Views: 1,481
"A Pensive Moment in a Cloud"
acrylic on canvas 
17" x 21" 2024
"A little match. A little sugar"
acrylic on canvas 
17" x 21"2024
I've been having a little fun lately working small scale. These are two of them that I recently finished up. The themes of cigar smoking and hot coffee is going strong. I never quite know when the next thing will come that I want to paint. Sometimes, I have to push myself to try something new. Other times, like now I have to force myself to stay on the same thing and new discoveries are born. 
  There comes a little bit of discipline, I just want to (at times) completely go in a different direction and go all the way abstract. I want to cause chaos on the canvas, and I push myself back because going that path is not always necessary or the best way to say exactly what I what to express in the work. There's a time for it tho, now is not one of those times. There's always an obscure line between pulling in the viewer in or overlooking them where the work becomes uninteresting. It's a push and pull and staying on a theme and what comes from it to know where to go next. 

Do we live in a perfect nation?

Posted 2024-06-28 00:37:00 | Views: 1,561
"Perfect Nation"
acrylic on canvas 
14" x 11" 2024
I started this tiny painting thinking of corruption and cover up, thought of Jack Ruby then my mind went to fast food and our nations over stimulation of sugar/and fake sugar in food. Draw your own conclusions. Our country seems to be in disarray. Hope you all enjoyed the debate last night. 

On another note, after I finished the painting, it reminded me of Robert Colescott. I was kind of suprised how the piece reminded me so much of his work. He was a genius of openly showing the deepest paranoias that lives inside of all of us. 
  Beginning stage of "Perfect Nation"

Man of Acres

Posted 2024-06-20 17:26:39 | Views: 1,960
"Man of Acres" 
acrylic on canvas 
43" x 34" (2024) 

Plans begin with a Drawing

Posted 2024-06-20 14:56:00 | Views: 2,122
One of the many things I've learned about being a painter is that the more I can make my paintings look like my drawings the better. For me personally, there's something raw about drawing in pencil, pen, ink or colored pencils. Often times it can be a bit diffcult to translate that into a truly successful painting. It comes down to drawing more, painting more and observing more. It even comes down to the sort of brushes to use. 
It's all one continual art project. It never ends. The truest form of art is what you put down on paper because often times it's not the final plan. At times we can divert from those tall stacks of used paper; it's often very raw we think, too real. A gallery owner once told me "I like your drawings, why don't your paintings look like your drawings?" It made me think, for one that maybe I'm not doing good enough of a job translating my sketches into paintings. Am I catching that true enegry? He was not giving advice per se, but it reaffirmed my belief in what I was working toward. Art projects are a lifetime, it continues and continues. 

All Nighter...

Posted 2024-06-17 22:33:00 | Views: 1,505
"All Nighter"
acrylic on canvas 
21" x 17" / 2024
A friend in Italy wanted to know a little about the painting...
     
As I make this post it's almost 2:30AM

Guarjiro Vision

Posted 2024-06-09 20:26:17 | Views: 1,408
"Guarjiro Vision" 
acrylic on canvas (2024)

Circumstantial Evidence (painting)

Posted 2024-06-06 16:56:00 | Views: 1,958
"Circumstantial Evidence" 
acrylic on canvas 43" x 34" (2024) 
My older brother bought me a polaroid camera for my birthday and these were the first two images taken. You can see the painting "Circumstantial Evidence" as I was working on it. 
April 2024
  THE SMOKING GUN
I've always been intrigued by film noir, old black and white detective movies and it's music. I also love German expressionism in painting and in cinema, which isn't too far off visually speaking from noir. As I always explore themes, I always come back to the past and what my parents and grandparents saw as Americana when they fled a communist country. I'm always searching for some deep feeling that defined the visual landscape of America in the 20th century. Of course, I do this in my own language in drawings and paintings. 

90 Seconds to Midnight

Posted 2024-06-05 14:48:18 | Views: 1,564
Here are some development shots at the studio finishing up the painting 90 Seconds to Midnight. 
 "90 Seconds to Midnight"
  acrylic on canvas (2024)

Smoking Still-Lifes?

Posted 2024-06-05 13:10:48 | Views: 1,871
"Moka Pot as Smoker"
 acrylic on canvas 36" x 24" (2024) 
These are the first two still-lifes I painted at the beginning of the year. I was pretty happy to be back in the studio because at the very end of 2023 I got the flu and didn't feel like painting much. These two pieces show a continuation of adding personality to coffee pots. For a reason I'm still developing I made the moka pot in the first painting and the second piece with the poka dot ceramic pot smoking cigars. Growing up all the older men around me smoked cigars, I think it just sort of stayed with me. People still smoke cigars, however back then, it was different. Growing up these guys smoked cigars like how people drink coffee everyday...it was all over the place. It was in the culture in a way that does not feel the same today. 
"Puff Puff, still-life"
 acrylic on canvas 36" x 24" (2024)