About the artist
A socially engaged practice rooted in community.
Artist statement
In 2024, Cher Valentino received a New York State Council on the Arts grant to develop work about migrant farmworkers in her area. The resulting paintings revisit a visual world first documented in photographs taken decades earlier, giving historical reference a new life in paint.
Her work is a personal investigation of the migrant community’s presence in western New York. It considers what it means to be seen, watched, at home, displaced, remembered, or erased.
The aMeriKa triptych expands this inquiry into a wider reflection on American identity. It places the promise of liberty beside the ongoing threats and exclusions experienced by people who have immigrated to the United States.
Biography
From publishing and design to a studio practice of witness.
Cher Valentino is a New York-based visual artist who lived much of her adult life in Montreal, Canada. After a multifaceted career in advertising and publishing, including founding Our USA Magazine and guiding its national distribution and visual identity, she returned to New York as Coordinator of the Letchworth Arts & Crafts Show & Sale with the Arts Council for Wyoming County.
Her background in curation, design, and storytelling supports a practice that amplifies community voices and addresses urgent social issues. She has been awarded New York State Council on the Arts grants in 2024 and 2026 and has exhibited throughout upstate New York.