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Vále Cruz
What would it be like to experience boyhood? The answer for Vále Cruz is embedded in the lived experiences of personal growth, sexuality, identity, and grief. Vále is a trans non-binary artist living in Los Angeles who explores ideas involving the catharsis of growing pains, uncomfortable stages of transgender identity reclaimed in the form of joy, and interpersonal conflicts from living in a foreign body. Images of bright, playful dreamscapes and outrageous worldbuilding are created through the use of acrylic paint, cardboard, paper machée, and textiles. Vále currently attends Santa Monica College and is working towards transferring to a University to attain a degree in Studio Art. They exhibited in shows such as HERE/NOW at the Barrett Gallery and Cold Turkey at the Allied Crafts Building, as well as juried a student show Are You Seen? at the Barrett Gallery.
Artist Statement
I move through life maintaining a superhuman, fluid identity as a transgender queer artist. My work lives, breathes, shape-shifts alongside me as I navigate mourning past versions of myself. Themes of gender, sexuality, body dysphoria, and societal pressures are represented in an amusing surrealistic style. I challenge the viewer to consider the gravity of these never-ending growing pains as they are carried out in a carefully crafted and refined way with clean lines, blended edges, and a harmonious balance of color. Mixed media is almost always necessary in expressing the most complicated parts of myself; as materials such as acrylic, gouache, clay, silicone and textiles create an amalgamation of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects seamlessly coexisting.
The most delicate of details intensify the truth that grounds the viewing experience when simultaneously considering the duality of lightheartedness embedded in my work. My intention is to create an absurd world in which I am free to celebrate my transformative body even if does not always come natural. At the same time, a playful sense allows for the visual perception to be as universally accepted as I demand my own existence to be.



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