Meet Valentina Sepulveda | Photographer and Visual Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Valentina Sepulveda and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Valentina, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?

I am tempted to start this answer with because, reminding me of a passage of Ocean Vuong, knowing I was always taught to never do that. Nonetheless, the answer is because. Simply there was never another way.

Everybody has a way in which they perceive the world and make sense of it, art has always been mine. It makes the roughness soft and the wideness of existence, digestible. Like that great coffee my dad makes, where he puts the ground beans in the filter and pours water on it to make it that soft bitter liquid. Art is my filter.

When I was little, art was always present one way or another, as it always is. It has always been my escapism, searching for beauty, sheltering myself in it, curating my ideal reality and, to quote myself, always seeking that allure the world would provide in the simplest of things, making my idealistic perception of my reality, of how I wanted the world to feel and look.

A career in the arts was never on the table, which I’ve talked about before, that just never seemed like a plausible option for me, the reasons vary. Nonetheless, as time passed by and those hobbies became what held my existence I gave permission to myself to pursue what now felt like my purpose.

Along that new enlightened purpose came a lot of questioning. Purpose of what? Pursuing this new path meant deconstructing my perception of the world and how I thought it worked, reconceptualizing what is art and its real purpose. Growing up I always knew that what I chose to do with my life had to, in some way, serve others. The work I did had to add value to my community for it to be worth doing, so, how was I creating art going to accomplish that? How is my self escapism important, and not just that, self escapism?

Art is what keeps us humans. It is vital as it’s in everything we do, see and touch. Not to say that everything can be art, but we can find art in everything, the book you read while you zip your morning coffee, the song you listen to while you shower, the five dollar print of a Picasso you bought in the flea market hanging on your wall, that show you watch after work. Art is a reminder of our humanity, of our consciousness and free will, it appeals to our sensibility in what seems like a universal language ironically experienced with such individuality. It’s a representation, a mimesis, of our overwhelming reality through the filter and the softness of sensible humanity. Art is a tell tale of its times, it creates and transforms the world we live in, it shapes a society. And that is a tough job, and a vital one as well.

The value of my work does not fall in the purpose of changing the world, but in finding those connections, that humanity in spaces where it seems lacking. I think that is our essence, the capacity we have as humans to find something where there appears to be nothing. I pursued an artistic career firstly because I have had the privilege to do so and simply because I could not see myself tolerating a life without art, not for me or for anyone.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

I am an artistic photographer and a visual artist. I specialize in portraits but have slowly been emerging in other types of mediums. My work has always been characterized with surreal touches and nostalgic moods. I like telling stories through my images, being only one or a whole series of them. I find that through images one holds a great power over our reality, with photography we can stop time and immortalize people and our surroundings, we become part of what we capture. I like to play around with different techniques, I usually shoot digital but I also have a great love for film and experiment with it when I can.

I choose photography as my main medium because of its essence. When taking a photograph we take reality of its time and space and we turn it into something separate and untouchable. We immortalize our existence and what surrounds us with this medium or as Susan Sontag puts it better,
¨all photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.¨
My work relies on connections and essence, on telling stories and capturing reality and its inevitable finitude.

I think the challenge overall was finding my way here, acknowledging that this was where I wanted to invest my time and effort. Pursuing an artistic career comes with a lot of ambiguity, instability and pressure, which was something so difficult for me to overcome and work with, it still is, but as I mentioned earlier, I do not see myself anywhere outside of the arts.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I think it’s always interesting to check out the work local artists are doing, check out the local galleries like Angulo Galeria and 206 Arte Contemporaneo, as well as local events around the city.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
As I mentioned the last time I talked here, I would not be where I am professionally without the help and support of Velia de la Cruz, founder of Fotógrafas del Norte, a collective I am honored to be part of. The work that has been done there has been immensely helpful to give visibility to the female photographers in the north of México.

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