Porcelain Perfect - Page 3

Her images, she says, "are like peeling back those layers, and bringing out the seedy underbelly, the complexities of human nature."

Shalene creates an ambiguous narrative that she says is like "a film still, where you capture a moment, and you're given certain clues as to what's going on in the scene. And basically it's up to the viewer to grab the information and fill in the past and the present and the future of what's going on to create that story."

For Ceramics Monthly, fellow ceramicist Mitchell Spain provided a close reading of one of her works, 'For Telephone: Yellow Tangle.'

Spain writes, "Valenzuela highlights communication in both two and three dimensions. The women's expressions imply gossip being relayed. There is also reference to the game of telephone, where the original message becomes distorted or manipulated as it is passed on. The bees are pollinating messages, and the tangled phone cord brings discord into the piece."

Lisa Simon, who has been showing Shalene's work at her Radius Gallery for seven or eight years, appreciates the personal expression the artist puts into her ceramics.

"Her women are like models you would see in Woman's Day [magazine]. Their hair is all made up, they have pearl necklaces, their faces are all made up," Simon says. "They're like magazine models, and at the same time they have this cheeky character. There's an irony about the images."

Renee Brown says of her friend: "She's always looking at the world with an opportunistic eye of betterment. That shows in her work. It's about the evolution of how women have been perceived, versus how women really are.

"It's how women are seen at first glance, porcelain perfect. But there is a deeper truth. She shines a light on the retro ideal of femininity."

Shalene "is curious about what is under their skin, the aesthetics, the idea of femininity." Brown says. "But what is underneath that? There's something that wasn't allowed to be said for so long in society, that is just beneath the skin. Shalene reveals it in a very playful way."

"Her art is not cynical," Brown adds.

Shalene's imagery may be retro, but the thrust of her art is not.

"I'm bringing these characters from the '50s or '60s, but [the artworks] are commenting on things today as well," Shalene says, adding, "The attitudes of that time are attitudes that we still carry. They haven't fully gone away. I mean, if they had, I wouldn't be making work like this."