Jeffrey Vallance is a California-born artist whose work blurs the lines between object making, installation, performance, curating, and writing. Critics have described his work as an indefinable cross-pollination of many disciplines. Often his installations are exhibited in site-specific locations. Examples include such projects as burying a piece of meat (chicken) at a pet cemetery in California; traveling throughout Polynesia in search of the origin of the myth of Tiki; having an audience with the king of Tonga; having an audience with the queen and president of Palau; meeting with the presidents of Iceland; creating a Richard Nixon Museum; traveling to the Vatican, Turin, and Milan, Italy to study Christian relics; installing an exhibit aboard a tugboat in the Västerbotten Maritime Museum in Umeå, Sweden; curating shows in the so-called fabulous museums of Las Vegas, such as the Liberace Museum, Debbie Reynolds Casino, Cranberry Museum and the Clown Museum; initiating a campaign called “Preserving America’s Cultural Heritage” (a federal bill that would establish a benefit fund for all living visual artists in the United States); and fashioning a shamanic “magic drum” in Lapland. In Orange County, California, Vallance curated the only art-world exhibition of the Painter of Light™ entitled “Thomas Kinkade: Heaven on Earth.”
Image caption: Jeffrey Vallance, The Royal Swim Fins of the King of Tonga (Super extra large), 1988, Gold leaf paint on rubber, 2” x12” x 20”.Centennial: 100 Years of Otis College Alumni, Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design. Photo: Ben Maltz Gallery.
