Xochi's is proud to present the Art of Vito Valdez and Diana Alva this Fall.

Dia de Los Muertos Novena. A nine day celebration of life, in honor and remembrance of loved ones and times in our lives, that have passed on.

Vito Jesus Valdez, second generation Mexican-American was born in Wyandotte, MI, and has been an artist and educator for more than two decades.  While serving in the U.S. Army as a surgical tech, he re-discovered his love of art and enrolled at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit upon his discharge. 

          Valdez left the U.S. in 1988 to work as an independent artist in Montreal, Canada and later received an artist-in residence award from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.  He subsequently received invitations to exhibit in Havanna, Cuba; Zacatecas, Mexico; Germany, and Paris, France. 

            Since his return to the States in 1992 his concentration has been on community art projects on the U.S./Canadian border in Detroit, and has received numerous grants, awards and public art commissions.  Valdez also works in the education department at the Detroit Institute of Arts and continues to exhibit his work in Canada and the U.S.

Who We Are

Artist Statement

By Diana Alva

Artist  Painter  Potter

Labels seem to be confining, and necessary, I guess. That’s what they tell me.

The urban journey, at this age, is to continue to create on a daily basis.

 I choose my color palette, then explore the subconscious and the blank canvas.

What brings it all together is my desire to create.

The viewer has the freedom to orchestrate his or her own events or stories.

Lifelike calligraphy suggests structure or expressive movement.

Concave, convex, round, square, sharp, and smooth.

This creates the drama and my own history.

Line becomes a lost stage of memories and lessons.

The visual shrapnel of humanity, its parts, its objects, form line and space.

These are the elements in each piece.

They are stories of warriors in rivalry and in love

Modern womanhood in a daily opera mixed with the past and present of self.

They are primitive and modern, structural and in repose.

The forms are given life by their relationship to one another.

I choose to explore their journeys by creating an abstract structural thicket.

Which becomes a linear myth, objective curiosity in visual form.

Painting and Pottery is limitless with life’s expressive experiences.

Pottery is form’s basic understanding, both inner and outer,

and line is the action it takes.

The studio is my world, my cave, and my factory.

My gender and race is the heart and soul of my art.

It’s the pure act of creating something from nothing.

Curious emotion mixed with colors lines and form.

2008