About the Artist
Raymundo is a Mexican-American listed fine artist born and raised in Mexico City. Raymundo’s work has been acquired by numerous private art collectors around the world including Buenos Aires, Dallas, SF, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, and Mexico City. He has participated in several group exhibitions.
Raymundo's Journey
After a school visit to the National Palace in Mexico City's iconic Zócalo Square, Raymundo was captivated by Diego Rivera's work after visiting his murals and he immediately became interested in shapes and colors.
He began his art studies as a child and his father, determined that he should dedicate himself to the arts and sports, enrolled him in piano, painting, and soccer classes. Raymundo didn't embrace the piano and soccer classes but loved his art classes and he continued to attend his art studies for 10 years.
Raymundo regularly visited art museums like the Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera houses and was a frequent guest of the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, where he became fond of and fell in love with the work of other Mexican artists such as Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo.
Raymundo's degree in graphic design allowed him to start his career in advertising. For many years he only worked as an art director with little time to paint, but it wasn't until he emigrated to the United States in 2004 that he had the time and drive to invest more time in his artwork.
Over the years, Raymundo was fortunate enough to travel all over the world and visit as many art museums as possible to contemplate the work of the masters. He also fell in love with Asian cultures, especially India and Southeast Asia.
"My art is inspired by the unexplored shapes and colors that an environment brings. The color, light & textures of my city and nature around me feed my fascination with finding beautiful geometric figures all around"
Raymundo Valdez
Migrating to the United Sates
After he immigrated to the United States in 2004, he officially started his professional career as a fine artist in 2005. He worked on several large-scale paintings with oil on canvas and was selected to be part of his first group exhibition in Dallas, Texas, along with local artists of the caliber of Sibylle Bauer.
In 2005 Raymundo moved to San Francisco to be the creative lead for a Hispanic Market Advertising Agency. He settled there in 2007 and met his future husband, fine artist Bradley Giles.
In 2009 Raymundo participated in the Tom Of Finland Foundation's "Emerging Artist Competition" in Los Angeles and won second place in the Fantasy category with her work "H2O". His experience with the Tom Of Finland Foundation was unique. The foundation ultimately acquired his painting as part of the permanent collection at the Tom Of Finland Museum in Silver Lake, California.
In July 2014, after his long struggle for marriage rights in California, Raymundo was inspired to create a painting that later became his piece "Hardship". The painting was selected to be part of the "Fiestas Fridas" group art show in San Francisco's iconic Mission District. This piece showed a strong influence from Diego and Frida's work.
Since 2017, Raymundo has lived in both San Francisco and Palm Springs, and through his journey, he has found inspiration in the southern California desert and the vibrant and iconic city of San Francisco.
During the pandemic, Raymundo, while looking through the window of his Castro apartment, had an epiphany and noticed that energy wires formed beautiful forms on top of the Victorian buildings. He painted his piece "Neighborhood" which was inspired by the beautiful geometric figures and organic shapes he saw.
Raymundo has been commissioned to paint portraits, wildlife scenes, and landscapes from private collectors in Argentina, Mexico, and the United States and has won several awards including the Tom of Finland Foundation's "Emerging Artist Competition" in Los Angeles and the Third Annual "Paint the Desert" competition organized by Desert Plein Air Association in Palm Desert.
Museum-quality reproductions of his work are for sale in various stores in San Francisco and Palm Desert, such as Welcome Castro, SF Mercantile, and the Artist Council store in Palm Springs.
Two Cities
Raymundo lives in San Francisco and Palm Springs. He has experimented with pastel, watercolor, and gouache, but his preferred medium is oil on canvas.