Bio
Will Omar Valdes (W.O.V) (b. 1998) creates figurative works on handmade paper and handmade laminate paper objects. They make modular installations that shift and change meaning depending on the installation site and curation. They experiment with specific papermaking “recipes” such as the combination of used semen-stained rags, coffee, tobacco, and sugarcane fibers to embed their materials with a distinctly queerly Cuban conceptual origin that is built directly into the work. W.O.V was born in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba and raised in Miami, Florida. They obtained their Bachelor of Fine Arts and a certification in Art History from the University of South Florida in 2020. They received a Master of Fine Arts from School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in 2024 and were a Collective Futures Fund grantee in 2024.
Artist Statement
W.O.V’s work aims to explore the tensions between the lived experience of a Queer Latine Cuban-American Immigrant and the online space of social media. Their handmade paper paintings, installations and sculptures are heavily influenced by their upbringing in early 00’s Miami where they were surrounded by the largest Cuban-American community in the world. They use internet aesthetics, along with their heritage, to inform their material choices, color palettes and simplification of motifs. W.O.V explores taboo and queer subjects such as online sex work, internet pornography, fatphobia, camp, labor and excess while resituating their contexts within an intersectional latine domestic space. By depicting painted porn website screenshots, porn ads, intimate queer encounters, domestic spaces, and religious figures of worship they can create a kaleidoscopic imagined safe-space where the cuir Cuban domestic realm and the online realm merge and remain in-flux.
williambooks@hotmail.com
instagram
Photo taken by Chris Diani
CV
Education
2024 Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Interdisciplinary Concentration
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston, United States
2020 Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) with a concentration in Painting
University of South Florida, Tampa, United States
2020 Certificate in Art History
University of South Florida, Tampa, United States
Teaching Experience
2026 Teaching Assistant: Exploring the Human Form, Introduction to Figure Drawing
Harvard University, Cambridge, United States
2026 Fine Arts Instructor: Painting & Drawing Techniques II
Brookline Center for the Art, Brookline, United States
2025 Teaching Assistant: Directed Research
Harvard University, Cambridge, United States
2025 Fine Arts Instructor: Painting & Drawing Techniques II
Brookline Center for the Arts, Brookline, United States
2025 Teaching Assistant: Abstraction
Harvard University, Cambridge, United States
2025 Fine Arts Instructor: Painting & Drawing Techniques
Brookline Center for the Arts, Brookline, United States
2025 Fine Arts Instructor: Fundamentals of Painting
Brookline Center for the Arts, Brookline, United States
2024 Fine Arts Instructor: Painting & Drawing Techniques
Brookline Center for the Arts, Brookline, United States
2024 Fine Arts Instructor: Fundamentals of Painting
Brookline Center for the Arts, Brookline, United States
2024 Teaching Assistant: Painting, Light Form, Surrealism
Harvard University, Cambridge, United States
2024 Teaching Assistant: Intermediate/Advanced Papermaking
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston, United States
2023 Teaching Assistant: Print and Paper 2D/3D
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston, United States
2023 Teaching Assistant: Intro to Figure Painting
School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston, United States
Grants/Awards/Fellowships
2024 AICAD Post-Grad Teaching Fellowship Nominee
2024 Creative Futures Fund Sustaining Practice Grant
2024 Montague Travel Grant Tufts University
2023 AICAD Post-Grad Teaching Fellowship Nominee
2022 MFA Scholarship Tufts University
2021 Artist Relief Fund Grant
2019 USF School of the Arts Talent Grant
2017 Women’s Club of Hialeah/Miami Springs Art Grant
Collaborations
2024 Summer Pour Part 2: Milfoil cont. (In Collaboration with Milcah Bassel, Particia Brace, Intermediate/Advanced Papermaking class at School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.
2023 Summer Pour Part 1: Milfoil (In Collaboration with Milcah Bassel and Patricia Brace)
Boston, United States
Group Exhibitions
2026 Violence Transformed: Invisibility, Piano Craft Gallery, Boston, United States
2025 Body Politic, Gallery 263, Boston, United States
2025 Watermarks, Curated by Amor Díaz-Campos, Nave Gallery, Boston, United States
2025 Desire Lines, Tufts University Art Galleries, Boston United States
2024 Flux(us), 92 Seattle Gallery, Harvard University, Boston, United States
2024 Queertopia, Piano Craft Gallery, Boston, United States
2024 Pulling Teeth and Jumping Rope , Curated by Danni Shen Tufts University Art Galleries, Boston, United States
2024 Habit-at, Curated by Renana Neuman, (In Collaboration with Milcah Bassel and Patricia Brace), PS122 Gallery, New York, United States
2024 Face, Juried by Anthony Peyton Young, Gallery 263, Boston, United States
2024 A Fag & A Dyke Are Having a Show, Mission Hill Gallery, Boston, United States
2023 Marketplace, Subcentral, Cambridge, United States
2023 Orbital Zine Dough Edition, Digital Exhibition: www.orbitalzine.com
2023 Vibrant Matter, Tufts University Art Galleries, Boston, United States
2023 Party of One, Tufts University Art Galleries, Boston, United States
2023 The Garden of Earthly Delights, Mission Hill Gallery, Boston, United States
2023 QT Embodied, Boston Sculptors Gallery, Boston, United States
2023 Print/Paper Area Show, Tufts University Art Galleries, Boston, United States
2023 To Whom It May Concern, Mission Hill Gallery, Boston, United States
2021 Orbital Zine Issue One, Digital Exhibition: www.orbitalzine.com
2020 Syzygy USF BFA Exhibition, Online Thesis Exhibition: www.usfbfa2020.com
2020 Transversal, 501 Gallery, Howard Blake Art Magnet High School
2020 In Arms Reach, Carolyn M. Wilson Gallery, Tampa, FL
2019 Arroz con Frijoles, Center Gallery, University of South, Florida
2019 Arroz con Frijoles, Carolyn M. Wilson Gallery, Tampa, FL
2019 Gayllery Art show, Marshall Student Center, University of South Florida
2019 Art Walk, Fine Art Building, University of South Florida
2018 The Red-Light Art Show, The Red Light, Seminole Heights, FL
2018. .RAW Show, Center Gallery, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
2018 Art Walk, Fine Arts Building, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
Commissions
2023 Private Commission, untitled, 11x14” Triptych, Watercolor and gouache on canvas
2020 Private Commission, untitled, 8x8”, ink on watercolor paper
2019 Private Commission, “Sly”, 20x20”, acrylic on panel
2018 Private Commission, “Portrait of a Girl” , 19 x 24 in., Charcoal on Paper
Related Experience
2025 Studio Assistant
Robert Siegelman, Boston, United States
2025 Studio Assistant
Robert Siegelman, Boston, United States
2018 Gallery Attendant
Quaid Gallery, Tampa, United States
Online Periodicals
2024 @collectivefuturesfund W.O.V received a Sustaining Practice Grant for their project “Pulp Presence: Exploring the performative and material nature of papermaking.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHtu7VNviHw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
2024 @collectivefuturesfund Cohort Highlight Series Will Omar Valdes (W.O.V)
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHl5EosSgkd/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
2024 @smfatufts Instagram Exhibition Spotlight “A Fag and a Dyke are Having a Show” Feb 2
https://www.instagram.com/p/C220fyoskC6/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
2021 “Interview with Cuban artist and USF Alumni William Omar Valdes (W.O.V.)” Niche Art Collective Feb 20
https://www.nicheartcollective.com/post/interview-with-cuban-artist-and-usf-alumni-williamomar-valdes-w-o-v
2019 Virginia Johnson “Explore What it Means to Be Hispanic at USF Art Exhibit” Spectrum Bay News 9 Sep 14 1:03PM https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2019/09/14/explore-what-it-means-to-be-hispanic-atusf-art-exhibit#
2019 Kai Holyoke, “At USF Tampa, ‘Arroz con Frijoles’ invites art fans to experience a different side of Hispanic culture” Creative Loafing Tampa Bay Sep 12 3 PM https://www.cltampa.com/arts-entertainment/visual-art/article/21086556/at-usf-tampa- arroz con-frijoles-invites-art-fans-to-experience-a-different-side-of-hispanic-culture
2019 Gloria Muñoz “Latinx Artists Explore Culture Through the Senses in Arroz con Frijoles” Creative Pinellas Sep 12
Presentations
2019 Transversal Artist Panel Q&A, Howard Blake Art Magnet High School, Tampa, FL, March 6th