Vincent Valdez blends large, representational paintings—the scale of which recall Western traditions of history painting as well as mural painting and cinema—with contemporary subject matter. He focuses on subjects that explore his observations and experience of life in the twenty-first century. The results are powerful images of American identity that confront injustice and inequity while imbuing his subjects with empathy and humanity. Valdez states, “My aim is to incite public remembrance and to impede distorted realities that I witness, like the social amnesia that surrounds us all.” Exhibitions and Collections include: The Ford Foundation, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, among others. He lives and works in Houston and Los Angeles.

Max Tolleson is a Critic-in-residence at the CORE Program in Houston, Texas and has published scholarship and art criticism with Artnet News, ASAP/J, Glasstire, and Panorama. While living in Marfa, Texas, he researched and wrote about the history of the Chinati Foundation in relation to minimalism, environmental theater, critical regionalism, and the politics of display; he has presented his research at the Getty Foundation and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Max received a PhD in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2023 and was a 2022-2023 Helena Rubinstein Critical Studies Fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York City.