Ghislaine & Lando Fremaux-Valdez | Cutaneous Sight
September 11 - October 3, 2026
Artist Statement
Bodies are secrets, or they are keepers of secrets, because they operate largely outside the reaches of consciousness and vision. Medicine and religion promise to decipher the body secret, each offering an account of what this body is, how it works, and how to care for it. We examine embodiment through the lenses of medicine, religious mythology, and our love for each other, mis/applying the ideas, instruments, and/or experience of each in the portrayal of our own bodies.
We “perform” surgical procedures, purifying rites, intimate acts of worship, and feats of miraculous healing on ourselves and each other, often with the use of medical and ceremonial tools, figures, and vestments constructed from items in our house. We photograph these exchanges and fabricate our reference imagery through digital collage, which enables us to cut and transplant photographic tissue in the production of new bodies and environments.
We draw together on paper, building the bones of each piece with charcoal, the mass with gouache, and the skin with chalk pastel. These materials never cure, never calcify; they live in total exposure and exclaim their own vulnerability on sight. We organize them into pictures so big that they resist being seen all at once. Supporting and questioning each other through the obliteration and retrieval of our bodies through drawing, rotating in and out of each piece fluidly, we can rarely tell where one of us ends and the other begins. Through the making of the drawing, we reveal to each other what we cannot see of ourselves, and serve as the stewards
of one another’s secrets.
September 11 - October 3, 2026
Artist Statement
Bodies are secrets, or they are keepers of secrets, because they operate largely outside the reaches of consciousness and vision. Medicine and religion promise to decipher the body secret, each offering an account of what this body is, how it works, and how to care for it. We examine embodiment through the lenses of medicine, religious mythology, and our love for each other, mis/applying the ideas, instruments, and/or experience of each in the portrayal of our own bodies.
We “perform” surgical procedures, purifying rites, intimate acts of worship, and feats of miraculous healing on ourselves and each other, often with the use of medical and ceremonial tools, figures, and vestments constructed from items in our house. We photograph these exchanges and fabricate our reference imagery through digital collage, which enables us to cut and transplant photographic tissue in the production of new bodies and environments.
We draw together on paper, building the bones of each piece with charcoal, the mass with gouache, and the skin with chalk pastel. These materials never cure, never calcify; they live in total exposure and exclaim their own vulnerability on sight. We organize them into pictures so big that they resist being seen all at once. Supporting and questioning each other through the obliteration and retrieval of our bodies through drawing, rotating in and out of each piece fluidly, we can rarely tell where one of us ends and the other begins. Through the making of the drawing, we reveal to each other what we cannot see of ourselves, and serve as the stewards
of one another’s secrets.
Artist Biography
Ghislaine and Lando Fremaux-Valdez are a collaborative partnership. Both are pastellists and portraitists. Since inaugurating their collaborative practice in 2020, they have imagined and executed each piece together, often drawing shoulder to shoulder. The drawings follow from long conversations about their own relationship, the visual cultures of medicine and religion, and the responsibilities of figurative art. They served as visiting artists at Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado (Ciudad de México, MX) in November 2025 and have enjoyed residencies at the Elaine de Kooning House and Studio (East Hampton, NY) and the Anderson Center at Tower View (Red Wing, MN). They have mounted solo shows of their collaborative work at Arts Fort Worth (Fort Worth, TX), Rosewood Arts Center (Kettering, OH), and Stony Brook Southampton (Southampton, NY), and look forward to solo shows at the Holter Museum of Art (Helena, MT) and Austin Community College (Austin, TX) in 2028. Their work has been published in The Harvard Advocate, Southwest Contemporary, and The Adroit Journal, among others. They have exhibited widely throughout the United States, in shows adjudicated and/or curated by Leslie Moody Castro, Juana Williams, Jessica T. Smith, Joanna Sheers Seidenstein, Triton Mobley, Jim Morphesis, and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, among others. In 2024, their work hung between the marital beds of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center. Lando teaches private lessons and community courses in drawing. Ghislaine is Associate Professor of Art at Texas Tech University. They are married and live in Lubbock, TX.
Ghislaine and Lando Fremaux-Valdez are a collaborative partnership. Both are pastellists and portraitists. Since inaugurating their collaborative practice in 2020, they have imagined and executed each piece together, often drawing shoulder to shoulder. The drawings follow from long conversations about their own relationship, the visual cultures of medicine and religion, and the responsibilities of figurative art. They served as visiting artists at Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado (Ciudad de México, MX) in November 2025 and have enjoyed residencies at the Elaine de Kooning House and Studio (East Hampton, NY) and the Anderson Center at Tower View (Red Wing, MN). They have mounted solo shows of their collaborative work at Arts Fort Worth (Fort Worth, TX), Rosewood Arts Center (Kettering, OH), and Stony Brook Southampton (Southampton, NY), and look forward to solo shows at the Holter Museum of Art (Helena, MT) and Austin Community College (Austin, TX) in 2028. Their work has been published in The Harvard Advocate, Southwest Contemporary, and The Adroit Journal, among others. They have exhibited widely throughout the United States, in shows adjudicated and/or curated by Leslie Moody Castro, Juana Williams, Jessica T. Smith, Joanna Sheers Seidenstein, Triton Mobley, Jim Morphesis, and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, among others. In 2024, their work hung between the marital beds of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center. Lando teaches private lessons and community courses in drawing. Ghislaine is Associate Professor of Art at Texas Tech University. They are married and live in Lubbock, TX.
Inventory
- Fugitive Sheet (Punctured), pastel and gouache on paper, 63” x 51”, NFS
- Fugitive Sheet (Opened), pastel and gouache on paper, 63” x 51”, NFS
- The Ascendant Animal (Magdalene in Furs), pastel and gouache on paper, 112” x 73”, NFS
- Foreign Body Retrieval, pastel and gouache on paper, 96” x 66”, NFS
- Drape (transfusion), pastel and gouache on paper, 100” x 68”, NFS
- Constrictor, pastel and gouache on paper, 51” x 180”, NFS
- Washing Feet / Hair Bath, pastel and gouache on paper, 86” x 98”, NFS
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Buckham Gallery is funded by the following organizations:
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Generous support is provided by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Community Foundation of Greater Flint.
This program is sponsored by the Greater Flint Arts Council Share Art Genesee Grant Program made possible by the Genesee County Arts Education and Cultural Millage funds. Your tax dollars are at work!
This program is sponsored by the Greater Flint Arts Council Share Art Genesee Grant Program made possible by the Genesee County Arts Education and Cultural Millage funds. Your tax dollars are at work!
