“I find painting as the responsible medium for those things for which we lack words or terms...”

Valerie Campos’ Vortex series evokes the physical instability, fragility and transfiguration that embody the relevant issues of our times. To this end, she combines historical art references from ancient and modern sculptures, geometric shapes and pre-Hispanic elements as universal symbols, whose juxtaposition represents the fusion, collapse, and disjunction of human history.  This work opens a universe that is essentially unresolved and depicts life as a vortex of activity, sound, and fury. 

Campos leverages the vortex as a swirling center of energy that can produce a range of physical, emotional, and spiritual effects.  She explores the liminal space between the conscious and unconscious worlds striking a balance between chaos and order. She anchors her work with horizontal and vertical lines, which form an invisible grid that translates three-dimensional space into flattened compositions of patterns and colors.

In this manner, the Vortex offers the freedom to allow many contradictions, and much humor in these works. New cartoonish representations of anthropomorphic figures emerge from pre-Hispanic bacchanalias, yet Campos creates ambiguity in her images by expanding the forms and colors to purge her paintings of any specific representative references. Multiple metamorphoses of the body underscore polysemy; this uncertainty is an axis for the creation of art and a visual reminder that there exists a higher state of vibration. 

Conceptually, Vortex is Campos’ return to painting of treacherous visual rhythms. This process speaks to the fundamental struggle of painting: the images created vs the act of creation, which allow the artist to reveal many levels and layers of emotions, ranging from deep learning to a sense of loss.