Thugs and Hoes! Linda Vallejo, 2011.
And we all like Mr. Slick, all obnoxious in the front row of the class, making everyone laugh – only to go home where he beats and abuses his women. We could do a whole piece on Mr. Slick! – Linda Vallejo
And we all like Mr. Slick and the bad boys and the misunderstood and the artists.
New York City
If you’re lucky enough to go, a university is one of the last places you’ll have the opportunity to be introduced to powerful, interesting people from your lecture seat. In fall 2022, when I began writing for the Italian Insider Newspaper in Rome, I attended a lecture hosted by Linda Vallejo about a limited time exhibit by 28 Chicano/a artists – “IN YOUR FACE!” at the Piazza Navona. I wrote about the opening for the paper – it was my first published article ever.
Linda Vallejo is a visual artist of many mediums, with over 5 decades of work. With her Mexican American background, she’s considered a Chicana artist – displaying what that means to her audience.
Now, 3 years later, I meet with my friend in her hotel room on 28th Street, to talk about a gallery she’s featured in on the swanky Upper East Side. I bring her pink flowers.
The “In Your Face” exhibit in Rome had been a celebration of Chicano art – “that’s how I’m coined, yes,” she told me, “I’m a chicana indigena artist.” The gallery was filled with colorful paintings of natural scenes, photographs of striking indigenous faces clothed in streetwear, and American icons painted a different shade to “make ‘em all Mexican.” With a long career and a massive body of work, Vallejo continues to be welcomed into showings like this one and the current gallery at the New York Franklin Parrasch building.
Mexican Gothic, 2014
“I met 30 artists last night at a birthday party in Brooklyn – I kept thinking to myself, how do these artists even survive in New York?”
“I have the same question,” I replied.
“In art school, nobody ever talks about money. Longevity becomes a thing for everybody – writers, visual artists especially – you have a chance at a very long career versus the models and the actors, who typically have very short ones. So you have to live a long time to get it done. Quality of life changes around your health. Where you can afford to live – the poor places are more polluted. I love New York, but I wouldn’t live here. I’m an Angeleno. It’s not much easier in L.A, but at least we have the beach.”
New York used to love the underdogs and the romantic grit of the starving artist. Basquiat, Keith Haring, Mr. Slick! Nas – their struggle breathed into their art. Even in my own short lifetime, I’ve seen New York change and gentrify, leaving little room (literally) for the creatives on the bottom.
Vallejo, though a true L.A. native and Chicana Indigena, has an international background. She lived in Germany from ages 3 to 5, and bounced around the United States and Mexico during her formative years.
“And it shapes – it shaped you,” I said.
“Of course. Of course it does. It affects what you know, and what you have to offer as an artist.”
“Yeah, you can’t pretend to be something you’re not just because -”
“- just because that’s what selling,” she replied.
43.4% of Farmers in America are Latino, 2017. Currently on Display at the Franklin Parrasch Art gallery in New York City.
So what’s the point? What do you do? How do you do it and what do you talk about? https://www.bing.com/search?q=how+to+be+an+artist
“There’s a tool kit for whatever aesthetic of art you make, what you use to make the art what it is,” she taught me, “and there’s a tool kit you build with your own experience, being creative with it is the important part. So I came up with my own visual language.”
“Well I like it, and I get it.”
“Well thank you!”
The tricky part of being a creative in the public eye is being personal without being exclusive. What you make can be about you, but it has to say something. The world is not, unfortunately, your diary, we both agree.
“I’m working on five portfolios right now. One is called ‘Self Knowing in the New Age.’ That sounds like language you would use,” she compliments me. “I’m doing portraiture using computer motherboards. I noticed that when you zoom out from the motherboard, it really looks like an aerial view of old architecture. Archaeological sites of Mexico. A circle inside a circle inside a circle. A square inside a square inside a square. I make faces, hands, parts of the body to describe – to ask the question, how do we interact with technology? How we see ourselves in the new age. We’re separating further and further from nature, our natural selves. They’re very difficult paintings, I’m literally using a brush with two bristles on it.”
“Does your hand ever hurt?”
“Yes. My hand, my back, my eyes.”
Self Knowing in the New Age, 2023-25.
Painting, not superimposing or photographing, the computer board within the face itself speaks to the contemporary artist. It speaks to me, at least. The computer and the gadgets and the digital world are largely the international experience that shapes us all. The complete rejection or complete acceptance of the internet or artificial intelligence does no good. It’s to be observed and reflected on. How do you know yourself? You ask yourself if you are an artist like the language models ask themselves if they’re humans. Yet the computer knows it’s not. You’re not so sure. How do you know who you are if you can’t relate to the outside world? To know you’re yourself or Basquiat or Linda or Grace or Mr. Slick. These thoughts flash with the electricity of your heart in your body, like the surges in the computer board. Think big picture. Big screen.
“I married a good man. The nerd at the back of the class. Good enough to be married for 50 years now. Not Mr. Slick dressed all cool, in the front of the class making all the girls laugh.”
“I like Mr. Slick.”
“I know, and you shouldn’t. The kind that in private beats his women and sucks their money from them. I said to my sons when they were teenagers – ‘you’ll be a womanizer over my dead body!”
She warns me not to wear my short black dress that I have on if I’m by myself in Mexico.
“I made a collection once that no one really showed interest in. It was called ‘Thugs and Hoes’ and had this great gold leaf detail and colorful pictures on pottery. I move from one sociocultural issue to another. One political issue to another – kinda like your magazine. You go from something interesting to another – like – let’s do a whole article on Mr. Slick.”
“Boys really inspire me,” I say, “I’m fascinated how they really shamelessly act on their desires. I don’t always like it, but it’s so easy sometimes to treat them as a study. As a young girl, they just let me. I always write about sex, because I think that’s really what it all comes down to.”
“It is what it all comes down to. And art is the third person in the conversation. In our conversation.”
The Impotence of Violence, 2024.
“They’re huge machine guns made of denim and velour. They’re squishy like giant dog toys. It’s a dogfight with chewy toys. War accomplishes nothing except death. Literally a limp dick.”
Sex is who we are, desire is who we are, nature is who we are, and somewhere the computers find a place within us as well. We all want to leave a mark on the world, the graffiti of New York and L.A. proves this to us. The artist’s job is to leave this mark. Translate these complexities to us. Turn machine guns into dog toys into the limp dick of the military.
“Humanity is a very complex being. Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies, sometimes we’re our own best friends. Ancient traditions have a place in our modern world. I could have been any kind of artist, Creativity has always come naturally to me. But I knew if I’d gone down the rock and roll route I would have destroyed myself. I always wanted to be a playwright. That’s my only regret. I would have loved to be a playwright.”
Linda Vallejo at the Franklin Parrasch Gallery. July 21st, 2025.
Cover Image: Self Knowing in the New Age, 2023-25. Linda Vallejo
@lindavallejostudio on Instagram
Grace Stathatos
Grit Mag in New York
Very interesting article. I got a real feeling of Picasso in the Self Knowing painting. It just struck me when I first looked at it. Also, the machine gun painting is really disturbing and powerful and horrible at the same time. It feels like it’s all blood molded together. Just a gut reaction to it.
This article is really eye-opening to those who don’t have that fine taste for the arts, you read through Grace’s words and how she goes through not only the light of these masterpieces but the details in which they were made. Lovely way of explaining these pieces and why she has such a love for art, amazing work. Keep it up.