Through his work across many media, Houston and Los Angeles-based artist Vincent Valdez bears witness to the world around him, chronicling an America at the margins. Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream… features work from over twenty years and writings addressing Valdez's work through the lens of politics, history and humanity. Valdez's approach to imaging his country, its people, politics, pride, and foibles includes boxing, lynchings of Mexican Americans, border walls, politics, greed, the Ku Klux Klan, and the failings and triumphs of American society. Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream… accompanies survey exhibitions of his work by the same name at the Contemporary Art Museum of Houston (CAMH) in 2024-5 and MASS MoCA in 2025-6. The bilingual (English/Spanish) publication features both full-color works and a gatefold for The Strangest Fruit as well as a sewn-in booklet of behind-the-scenes studio images. Texts include a reprint of Joyce Carol Oates' On Boxing, essays by exhibition co-curators Denise Markonish and Patricia Restrepo; and a text by Evan Garza on the artist's relationship to Texas.

Vincent Valdez is a Houston and Los Angeles-based artist. He received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors, and also completed residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting, the Vermont Studio Center, the Kunstlerhaus Bethania Berlin Residency, and Joan Mitchell Center. Valdez was awarded an Artadia grant and was an artist fellow at NXTHVN in New Haven.

The artist's work is included in numerous museum collections across the United States. Recent institutional exhibitions include The Face of Battle: Americans at War, 9/11 to Now, Smithsonian Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; So Different, So Appealing, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA; The City, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; Between Play and Grief: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2019); Suffering from Realness curated by Denise Markonish Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA);and ESTAMOS BIEN: LA TRIENAL 20/21 at El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY. He is represented by Matthew Brown Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.