Creators, Makers, and Doers: Veiko Valencia

Posted on 12/16/15 by Arts & History

Veiko Valencia is a skilled artist who paints, illustrates, and constructs. He hails from Arequipa, Peru and journeyed to Boise to pursue an education at Boise State University. Valencia discovers a fascination with everyday subjects and how they can evoke a sense of irony once they are disassembled, translated, and digested. With discipline and commitment, Valencia is moved and motivated by curiosity, and with the uncertainty and excitement that discovery brings.

What are you working on at the moment?

Well at this moment, I’m working on this show based on the idea of “copies.” Basically, it’s all going to be 2-D work and probably a few sculptures. Everything has the same subject but different approaches.

How much time per week do you spend in your studio? What kind of relationship do you have to your work space?

If I come to the studio, I don’t like to leave at all. I like to stay for ten hours straight and I prepare myself for that. I come with everything in my head; I do not leave the studio. If I have to get paint stuff, I go and get it first and I come with everything. That’s what I like here, if I run out of food I can just right away run across the street get something and come back here and continue. That’s kind of my relationship with the studio. It’s more like I lock myself in here. It’s the only place where I can think, I talk to myself when I’m making something.

Where do you find inspiration?

I would say, at this moment, I find inspiration reading. The copy of the copy idea, it came from reading the history of colonial art. Looking at the process, the copy never disappears, it transforms. I like to think about that and write about that. That’s when the whole thing became a concept for me.  So my inspiration comes from reading but it also comes from doing the things that I read. Looking at the process and then writing about it. That’s when everything becomes a whole idea.

What would you say is the driving force behind your work?

I always talk about chess. I like to play chess a lot and I am kind of an amateur, but I like the fact that there are many possibilities. Many ways to get the right move. That’s kind of what I like about this, the driving force that I have with this project is that it has so many possibilities to get the right move but also to get the wrong way. That’s so unexpected, that I don’t know the outcome. I don’t know if I’m making the right movement here, I don’t know what answer will come from the other move and that also affects me. It’s so much unexpected and that’s what I want to figure out. I don’t know where I’m going to land, the curiosity is to see the outcome. That’s what keeps pushing me, the driving force, that curiosity. I want to see the outcome and I guess I’m never going to see it because it always changes.  Every time I move forward to see the outcome it creates a new set of possibilities. The outcome keeps being pushed away, so I never see it. That’s that curiosity, to want it, to see it. That pushes me to keep moving forward and to keep taking risks.

Do you think the art community is thriving or is it missing something?

I think when I came here in 2007, I saw that everything was so slow and there was barely an active idea of what artists were. Now, I think I see that it’s more active now. I see that something is happening here. The River sculpture, it kind of became the symbol of the city. The fact that they are re-working it and fixing it, it brings awareness that there was an art piece there, something is missing.

What type of resources do you need to further your art career?

I guess here in Boise, I was thinking about the fact of having more galleries, but the thing that kind of happens to me, more after I graduate and earn my Bachelors in Boise, was the fact that I realized that we as artists are not as big a community as I thought, we are so isolated. The fact that we don’t have a thing that links us together after school or after a show or whatever, in a way, that’s what I don’t like as much. It’s hard to integrate into other groups.

What keeps you in Boise?

I’ll say just time. Less time commuting, going from one place to another, and that transition from your home towards your studio is so short that whatever idea you woke up having, you can come here right away and transfer it. I can spend more time in the studio than any other place and in the end that’s just what I want, more time in the studio creating stuff.

Creators, Makers, & Doers highlights the lives and work of Boise artists and creative individuals. Selected profiles focus on individuals whose work has been supported by the Boise City Dept. of Arts & History.