Val Britton American, b. 1977

Val Britton (b. 1977, Livingston, New Jersey) is an acclaimed American artist celebrated for her intricate collages, installations, and public artworks that evoke the language of maps, network diagrams, and astronomical forms through abstraction. Her compositions mimic and evoke the intertwining of spatial networks–cosmological, symbolic, emotional, topographic–that we inhabit at each given moment. Playing with various aerial and terrestrial perspectives, Britton’s kinetic collages of cut, stained, and painted paper borrow from the formal language of map-making. Yet, her shapes and forms coalesce to create imaginary dreamscapes. Britton’s interest in maps began when she was a young artist as a way to process the loss of her father, a long-haul truck driver and mechanic, who passed away when Britton was young. When she road-tripped across the country to begin graduate school at California College of the Arts, Britton used an atlas to piece together old itineraries and retrace his cross-country routes.  While the literal map has receded from Britton’s compositions, she remains interested in mapping as a conceptual process–how notions of vastness, distance, and time affect us deeply. 

Equally as important as Britton's theoretical interest in the delineation of space and time is an ethos of caretaking which approaches materials as an opportunity for mending. Britton asks how art might re-embody that which has been rejected, overlooked, or forgotten. Britton’s materials often come from repurposed objects, such as found paper, and discarded ink cartridges. As a resident of Portland's Glean (2022) and San Francisco’s Recology Artist-in-Residency Program (2010), Britton confronted the grief of collective waste and further explored an art practice rooted in regenerative action and conservation. During her time at the Tides Institute and Museum of Art in Eastport, Maine (2024), she began using salt water in all of her paintings. The minerals build up on the surface of her compositions, adding to the tactile nature of each painting, as well as prioritizing the usage of non-toxic materials. 

Val Britton received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design before completing her MFA from California College of the Arts. Britton's work has been shown in over 65 solo and group exhibitions in museums, galleries, art fairs, universities, and non-profit institutions nationally and internationally. She is the recipient of many grants, fellowships, and residencies including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and the Fleishhacker Foundation Eureka Fellowship. Born in Livingston, New Jersey, Britton spent 14 years in San Francisco before relocating to the Pacific Northwest, where she now lives and works in Portland, Oregon.