Valerie Strom

Vancouver Island based artist Valerie Strom creates figurative paintings that are inspired by her deep love of people and the human experience. Mainly focusing on figurative portraits she designs paintings that evoke emotion and focus on colour, loose brush strokes and warm light. Growing up in a family with a mother that immigrated from Mexico she lived between two cultures and frequently travelled to a small village in Mexico that she also called home. Her paintings often feature indigenous women that she knows from Mexico hoping to shed light on their strength.

A self taught emerging artist, Valerie started drawing in elementary school but took up painting in 2019 and fell in love with oil paint. She works to improve her craft every day in her home studio. In 2022 she partook in the Cowichan Fine Arts Show and internationally at 2 collective art shows in Mexico. A collective art show in Mexico City at Sophart Gallery as well as a collective art show at Distrito Soma in San Miguel de Allende.

The written language is not my strong suit, it never has been. I prefer the visual language, the emotional language. Painting is my method of communicating and making sense of my innermost experience to myself and the world. Growing up with two cultures and two languages has given me a deep sense of who I am and how intricate and strong people are. Regardless of where we come from we are all connected in our experience of the same emotions and of the world we live in. I believe art helps describe what you cannot describe in simple words. These paintings are meant to help people put their finger on an emotion and for them to say “that’s it, that describes what I am feeling”.