Valerie Mendoza is a lens-based installation artist, writer and educator. Her work mines the intersections between history, memory, media, institutions, and language. Using photographs, video, audio, objects, personal narrative, and various forms of information, her immersive installations create a cross-disciplinary dialogue between disparate sources to interrogate cultural assumptions. Her early work used scientific theories and terminology as metaphors for human behavior. Recent work falls within the realm of social practice and addresses the issue of lack of affordable housing in the U.S. and abroad.

Mendoza’s work has been exhibited in France, Ireland, Mexico, Portugal, and venues throughout the United States. Three completed bodies of work were featured in her 2018 solo exhibition, O Custo de Vida (The Cost of Living), which addresses the issue of affordable housing in the U.S., and occupied all three floors of Galeria do Sol in Porto, Portugal. The same year, she created an installation in San Jose, CA, addressing similar challenges faced by citizens of Portugal. These cross-cultural exhibitions created space for public discussion, and introduced two populations facing similar problems to one another. Our Agents (a part of O Custo de Vida), has been chosen for inclusion in numerous national juried group exhibitions, including Lie, Cheat, Steal: Contemporary Art and Ethics, Kresge Gallery, Lyon College, AR, 2019, The de Young Open, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, 2020, San Francisco Camerawork’s Forecast 2020, and So Real–Surreal, O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, Mill Valley, CA, 2021.