Vincent Valdez: Just A Dream... Since 1977 Mug

These sequential portraits depict the upper portions of the heads of US presidents who served between 1977, the year that Vincent Valdez was born, and 2019, the year he completed the series. The figures are presented as almost mere men, stripped of their power through orchestrated framing. The fragmented heads of the presidents gradually descend, insinuating a steady decline as time marches on. The final frame is pitch-black yet sprinkled with twinkling stars; Valdez proposes the work’s conclusion as “an abyss-like void, or an open slate, waiting to be determined by you, the American people.”