Rodrigo Valenzuela ’10 photo: Robert Wade from artisttrust.org

Video artist and photographer Rodrigo Valenzuela ’10 already held a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography before moving to Boston from Chile, where his family still lives today. Valenzuela chose Evergreen, after several years working in the United States, to study philosophy in an uninhibited environment. Valenzuela credits his Evergreen experience for learning to have a better dialogue with the material and the subject in his art.

While Valenzuela now considers Seattle home, he has accepted a competitive Core Fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. During his fellowship, Valenzuela will have solo shows at the Contemporary Art Museum in Santiago, Chile, the Frye Art Museum in Seattle starting January 31st, and UPFOR Gallery in Portland, Oregon starting in early March. Once he has completed the fellowship, he plans to move back to Seattle.

After graduating from Evergreen in 2010, Valenzuela spent several years teaching Video Art at the University of Washington, while doing shows across the United States. He was the winner of the 2013 Stranger Genius Award in visual art, and several weeks ago was awarded one of two 2014 Arts Innovator Awards from the Artist Trust.

If you live in Olympia, you may remember some of Valenzuela’s earliest shows at the Black Front Gallery, The Capitol Theater, Wards Space, The Northern, and Cherry Loft. He’s also shown in Miami Florida, Los Angeles, and New York. Valenzuela has firmly established himself in the Seattle area; the showing at the Frye Art Museum is his 5th solo show in Seattle, and his first museum exhibition.

Learn more about Rodrigo Valenzuela’s work on his website.