Ed Valentine

Ed Valentine (b. 1951, Columbus, Ohio) earned a BFA from Columbus College of Art & Design and an MFA from The Ohio State University.  He has exhibited widely throughout the US, Europe, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. He has been represented by and had solo exhibitions at (among others) Envoy Enterprises, New York; Ruth Segal Gallery, New York; Avenue B Gallery, New York; Ovsey Gallery, Los Angeles; Burton Gallery, Los Angeles; Linda Warren Projects, Chicago; Hofheimer Gallery, Chicago; and Angela Meleca Gallery, Columbus, Ohio. 

Valentine has been included in group shows throughout the United States and Europe alongside such artists as Keith Haring, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, David Salle, Theaster Gates, Mickalene Thomas, Lorna Simpson, and many others. He is represented in museum collections as varied as The New Britain Museum of American Art in New Haven, Connecticut, The National Gallery of Art in Prague, and The Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock. In addition to an active studio practice with studios in both Ohio and Jersey City, New Jersey, Valentine heads a small art department at The Ohio State University, Lima where he teaches foundation courses and is the sole curator and director of the OSU, Lima, Farmer Family Gallery.

On the work featured in this exhibition:

I began this series about four years ago. From the start, my thoughts were to build a painting around the three vertical planes of a landscape, using a different process for each. I needed to keep the marks basic, at times raw, and even crude, at a sort of everyman skill level and understanding. Through several iterations I arrived here 

From doodles on a chalkboard, spray painted graffiti, to everyday drips, spills and splatters, these are the sort of marks that we all have a history with and can relate to. Still, these are formal paintings concerned with composition, color, texture, pattern, rhythm, and all the elements that make a painting work.

These are not stern or intimidating paintings, yet they are not soft or easy paintings. They are serious, smart, whimsical, and both visually and conceptually complex. They speak to a contemporary audience about what it is to be a painting while evoking a whisper about beauty and imperfection, brokenness, and resilience.

Ed Valentine, Landscape with Drips, Painted Birds and Smudge, 2019
Spray paint, acrylic, Conte crayon, and chalkboard paint on canvas

7’ x 7’
Courtesy of the artist