Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) 2000


Los Cielos: The Heavens 
solo exhibition
Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC)
Los Angeles, CA
September 30-November 5, 2000

The Meaning Of Symbols And Ceremony In Our Lives
El Dia de los Muertos/The Day of the Dead Celebration
Closing reception & panel discussion
Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC)
Los Angeles, CA
November 5, 2000

 


 

Artist statement
Linda Vallejo

The “Los Cielos” series seeks to integrate my understanding and experience of ceremony, my personal love of nature and my personal healing through nature. Often in sharing these paintings with others, I am told deeply personal stories of vision, catharsis and healing. One of my goals as a painter has been to touch the collective unconscious and I believe “Los Cielos” has been successful in reaching a place deep within the viewer.

 


 

Excerpt
Celebrating Life Forces: Los Cielos/The Heavens

Leah Ollman
Los Angeles Times
October 14, 2000

Linda Vallejo’s paintings are generated by her deeply felt connection to exactly those fundamental life forces birth, nature, spirit that are spurned as quaint or old-fashioned by the hippest tier of the contemporary art world. Her recent paintings at the Social and Public Art Resources Center (SPARC) are celebratory and not the least cynical. Their beauty hasn’t even a tinge of irony. Though predictable in some respects, they please the eye and offer a welcome form of nourishment to the heart.

Vallejo visualizes the unity of all living things by layering them, so that Mother Earth and Father Sky appear as translucent figures looming large on the arced horizon. This approach verges on kitsch at times, but when it works, as in Eternal Seed, it works gloriously. Painted with a lush sensuality reminiscent of Georgia O’Keeffe, Eternal Seed pictures a standing woman merging with the sinuous, foliate forms that rise around her. She is birthed by the Earth and in turn can give birth. Cradled under one breast is a sphere, its roundness a symbol of fertility and renewal.

Drawn from a series now more than 50 strong, Vallejo’s images of the sky Los Cielos/The Heavens give this show its name and some of its more striking moments. Ruminations on vastness more than precise transcriptions of cloud patterns, the paintings range from slightly cloying and saccharine in palette to richly layered records of wonder.

For Vallejo, an L.A. native with a deep interest in the function of ceremony, these paintings serve, perhaps, as acts of prayer. For the viewer, they are at the least a soothing poultice.

 


 

Artist statement, Biography and Vita by Linda Vallejo, USCB Library
Los Cielos 2000: The Work of Linda Vallejo essay by Sybil Venegas, USCB Library
Notes From the Living Room Couch: A Collector Speaks Out essay by Armando Duron, USCB Library
Urban Prayers: The Celestial Imagery of Linda Vallejo essay by Reina Alejandra Prado Saldivar, USCB Library
Los Cielos/The Heavens Exhibition review by Leah Ollman, USCB Library

 


 

Exhibition invitation SPARC announcement  USCB featureDay of the Dead events schedule Day of the Dead panel questions