Christina Valenzuela with HereIn

Untitled, 2025, oil on panel, 7.5 x 7.5 in.

Informed by art history, philosophy, and medicine alike, Christina Valenzuela’s vibrant paintings make visible the experience of living with invisible illness. Valenzuela was recently diagnosed with narcolepsy, a rare neurological disorder affecting the brain’s ability to regulate sleep-wake cycles. Her work speaks powerfully to the specificity of her own experience with narcolepsy while engaging more broadly with the reality of living with a vulnerable body and mind. Valenzuela spoke with HereIn Editor Elizabeth Rooklidge about the materiality of paint, her art historical influences, and using art to “make it real.”

Left: Take pills, 2022, oil on panel with acrylic frame and gelatin capsules, 18 x 20 in.; Right: Beatific vision (ketamine), 2022, oil on wood panel with wool, 25 x 26 in.

HereIn: When people ask you about the kind of work you make, how do you describe your practice?

Christina Valenzuela: Most immediately, it's just “chunky paintings,” because I think the visceral nature of my work is really important to me. That's why I paint. I'm obsessed with the material. I love color. It's like you're painting with butter or something— you're kind of sculpting an image. I also say "closeups of the body,” "lots of patterns." But then I end up saying, “I can't describe it to you. Let me just show you."

HereIn: Of course!

Valenzuela: And then sometimes I'll include stuff about narcolepsy, if I feel like I have a moment to actually talk about the work. I've always made work about mental health, but then things shifted when I got diagnosed with narcolepsy. So right now I'm focusing a lot on sleep.

 Ketamine Queen, 2019, oil on panel, 48 x 36 in.

HereIn: How do those things manifest in your paintings?

Valenzuela: It's interesting because I don't want to just say that I'm making paintings about mental health and narcolepsy. You know what I mean? I guess I don't want to box myself into this idea of I make paintings of these things, but I want to give myself an avenue out, if I want to change my mind and paint my dog or something like that. But a big part of life has been that my mom is a physician, my fiancé is going to be a physician, my brother's a physician. I'm surrounded by this medical community. And I've always been “the patient” in so many ways. So my experience throughout life is my body, and I really focus on that.

Left: Madman across the water (she would sit in freezing water for days), 2022, oil and acrylic on panel with wood frame, 20 x 20 in.; Right: Perched (she would escape the smell of sin at great heights), 2022, oil on panel with wool, 26 x 26 in.

It's almost like I can't help it. Sometimes I feel like I'm making all these things I experience in my body–these issues in my head–up. Like, they’re not real, I can't see them. But then I make these drawings of these things that I'm experiencing and they feel so real. It’s like I’m giving them a body. I'm making them into a little person or something. I'm making it real. These things that I'm just so skeptical about, it helps me accept them.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty…he’s really the best. The fact that he relies on painting as an example of experiencing the world. In making a painting or drawing, I create an object that is an extension of myself: as Maurice Merleau-Ponty said in Eye & Mind, I am “lending my body to the world” and “changing it into a painting.” Painting and drawing are then an expression of our embodied vision. By representing my own figure, I create a sort of mirror in which I can look back at myself. I am physically connected to this object, making visible my thoughts, and  releasing the stuff inside me. It's a way for me to accept, basically.

Untitled, 2021, oil on panel, 16 x 20 in.

HereIn: Merleau-Ponty is the perfect reference for your work. I also really love the eclectic group of painters you look to, in terms of art historical references. Who are some of those people? 

Valenzuela: It's so funny. People will be like, who's your favorite artist? And I'll be like “Van Gogh.” I love how he's the most commercialized artist of all time, but with good reason. This is polarizing, but I would say that ninety-seven percent of the artwork that I see, I don't care for or resonate with. But Van Gogh, every single time I see his work, no matter what painting, not only am I taking in the imagery and trying to experience the image that he's giving us, I'm also embodying him in some way. You know what I mean? I'm trying to channel what it was like to make that painting. And I feel his paintings with my body. They're just effortless. He's just making these paintings of the things in front of him, because he loves to paint, and frankly, it helps him escape whatever he was experiencing. So anyways, love Van Gogh, he's the best. There are a few other artists that I love every single one of their works. One is Philip Guston. And Domenico Gnoli is another one.

Left: Sleep Study, 2023, oil on wood, 25.75 x 25.75 in.; Right: Energy Field, 2023, oil on wood, 12 x 16 in.

And then specific works by other artists, like Albrecht Dürer’s sketch which has six pillows on one side, and, on the other, a pillow, his hand, and self-portrait  It was done in preparation for his 1493 painting, which is one of the earliest self-portraits in Western art history. I love medieval and early Renaissance art. Sienese paintings are really weird. The way space is depicted is just odd. There's always a lot of images of sleeping chambers—I love how that's such a private place, but they weren't afraid to depict it. Gentileschi’s Mary Magdalene is a really beautiful painting that’s been on my mind for a long time. Mary Magdalene supposedly lived this crazy life and then the painting shows her kind of just giving up. There are tears in her eyes, her expression is like she’s so exhausted from crying so much. It’s just so honest. We tend to think of the things she’s done instead of thinking of her as a person and what she’s experiencing. That was probably pretty profound when she made the decision to find God, right?

Subtle Modulation, Electric Stimulation, 2019, oil on panel, 36 x 36 in.

HereIn: That is such a perfect link to your paintings, which often depict moments of emotional of physical intensity, or where those two things intersect at what feels like a breaking point. You and I have both experience a lot of those points over the last few years, and you’ve had some serious obstacles to being in the studio. You’re now in a moment of having more studio time. What are you most excited about, in terms of making in the near future? 

Valenzuela: I realized that I have all these ideas—I make all these drawings, and they're compulsive. I'm making them for a reason, so I need to explore that in painting. I love small paintings. I feel like they're very intimate, and everyone paints so big and it's so overwhelming. Just let me paint it small and get my ideas out. So I'm really excited to just make things. And these new sleeping paintings I’m making, I feel like looking at the paint itself is a satisfying experience. The paintings just bring me calm. Comfort.

HereIn: That's so interesting because that's quite a different effect than some of your paintings have had in the past. You’re making these paintings that can have such radically different affective modes. It seems to me like a difficult thing to do, but you’re doing it so well. 

Valenzuela: Why am I painting emotions? I don't know. I mean, what else are we supposed to paint?

This conversation has been edited by HereIn and the artist for length and clarity.