On This I Stand: an interdisciplinary exploration of the lowrider community and automotive industry from a woman’s perspective.

On This I Stand is Jacqueline Valenzuela’s latest body of work that highlights her three-year fine-art hiatus to focus on painting lowriders in an auto shop instead of producing personal work. Valenzuela gained insight into painting approaches used by auto paint technicians as well as knowledge of various materials commonly used by car builders and car owners. This experience redefined what art meant to her. Since then, Valenzuela’s work has increasingly involved mixed media and non-traditional approaches.

Using bold colors, hybridization of abstraction and realism elements, lowrider kustom paint techniques, and various lowrider interior materials, Valenzuela created compositions that emphasize femininity in this male-dominated world. Every materialistic choice is specific to the narrative. Valenzuela’s surfaces range from larger-scale painting on canvas, assemblage style frames or found object installation. The idea of rasquachismo is evident throughout, especially with the deconstructed lowrider assemblage style frames and the found object installations. These pieces in particular unpack the aesthetics of lowriding. Resulting in a visual experience that is reflective of the imagery that Valenzuela comes across in her daily life as a woman that is fully engulfed in lowrider culture. Valenzuela has drawn inspiration from images she has taken while in the Kolor Studio Autobody and Paint shop, photos taken by her peers of her 1975 Cadillac El Dorado and sometimes even imagery of aesthetic choices made by women within the lowrider community. Pieces such as “Still Tippin”, frame a variety of tires and rims that were laying around the Kolor Studio. Moments like this draw Valenzuela in, almost asking the artist to paint them. This composition heavily influenced the creation of “Llantas (Tires)”, an assemblage type installation using the very tires and rims painted in “Still Tippin” as well as various other found tires positioned together to create a toppled over tower of tires, a sight that is common for Valenzuela in her studio that doubles as a body shop. The larger scale work in On This I Stand  is reflective of these moments Valenzuela comes across during her everyday routine at her studio. While the smaller scale works that function as deconstructed lowriders zoom in on details of lowriders and the hands of the women in this community. Long, curved nails; These personal aesthetic choices are common amongst the women driving these high customized cars. In a way the lowriders and the women’s aesthetics are extensions of each other, constantly informing one another. In “Switches”, there’s a zoomed in look of a woman’s hand hitting switches. A clear representation of the women who are cruising the boulevard while not sparing the feminine energy they emit. Ultimately, On This I Stand is a reflection of Valenzuela’s first-hand experiences or stories of the women within the lowrider community.