Jacqueline Valenzuela - Sanctified Steel

_Sanctified Steel_ is **Jacqueline Valenzuela**'s first solo exhibition with Craig Krull Gallery. She describes the work as an examination of the "rituals, labor and belief systems embedded within Chicano lowrider and Kustom automotive culture. Drawing from experience working alongside painters, fabricators and builders in an auto body shop, I consider the garage as a contemporary site of devotion - a place where acts of restoration, customization and maintenance become expressions of care, identity and remembrance." Valenzuela identifies a relationship between ornate bedazzling Catholic churches and the extravagant attention to chrome and glittery paint in lowriders. Both traditions relish the flamboyant, and both are founded in acts of veneration. She suggests that her works are reliquaries that carry "histories of labor, family, aspiration and cultural knowledge passed between generations." Many of the paintings in _Sanctified Steel_ employ a compositional framing device similar to the _nicho,_ a shadow-box folk art object in Catholic Latino communities that serves as a devotional altar to honor saints or loved ones. One of her first prototypes in this _nicho_ style was a work titled _En tu Recuerdo,_ inspired by a female lowrider in Santa Ana who assembled a lavish marigold and candle filled installation with her red '65 Corvair in remembrance of stories about her lowrider uncles. The 32 x 26" box-like assemblage combines white faux fur, fuzzy dice, jewels, and pompom fringe around an intimate painting of the car with flowers bursting from its hood. Several works in this exhibition include depictions of the Virgen de Guadalupe, an apparition of a mestiza form of Mary that appeared to an Aztec convert to Christianity near Mexico City in 1531. She has become recognized around the world as the patron saint of Mexico, the embodiment of a new cultural identity, as well as a protector of the oppressed and the outlawed, the central unifying icon of Chicano and lowrider culture. Valenzuela often combines the larger picture of Chicano life with references to individual personal narratives. The painting _Just Like Candy_ was inspired by a photograph a friend made of a car with a crude DIY spray-paint job in powder pink. Valenzuela states that the paint was streaky, but the love for the culture shone through. This car, she reminds us, reflects the Chicano art theory of _rasquachismo,_ the effort to make the most out of the least. Originating from a slur for "cheap," this word, along with the word Chicano itself, has been reclaimed with pride.