About Me
Bio
Valerie Ostenak is an award-winning painter and sculptor whose conceptual abstract works are inspired by the natural world—from the movement of water to the vastness of the cosmos. Raised in the Arizona desert, she formed a deep spiritual connection to water that continues to inform her work. Her vibrant, metal leaf–accented paintings evoke transformation and introspection, and have been featured in public art programs including New Mexico Art in Public Places and Rockefeller Center’s Flag Project. Ostenak's work was invited to the XV Florence Biennale, has been featured by National Geographic, and collected by the University of New Mexico Hospital and Navajo Technical University.
A multidisciplinary artist with a career spanning over three decades, Ostenak began as a metalsmith creating sculptural art jewelry, forged furnishings, and wall works for private collectors and interior designers. Her accolades include the Saul Bell Design Award, the Centurion Emerging Designer Award, and the Halstead Jewelry Design & Business Development Grant. She has exhibited multiple years at both SOFA Chicago and internationally during Milan Fashion Week. Her work has been published widely—in Vogue UK, Harper’s Bazaar, The World of Interiors, Tatler, Marie Claire, and in over a dozen books on contemporary art jewelry and blacksmithing. She has taught at universities and associations across the U.S. and completed artist residencies in the UK and Italy.
_______________________________
Along with Art & Design . . .
• I love motorcycles—rode for 25 years—I still lean into a curve in my SUV • swimming is my favorite meditation • delving into nutritional chemistry can become a rabbit-hole • I'm a voracious reader, and I fiercely love my family.
Favorite movies . . . Aliens, Terminator II, all Transformers, Princess Bride, Young Frankenstein, Chasing Mavericks, all James Bond with Sean Connery and Daniel Craig, Jason Bourne series, Under the Tuscan Sun, 10,000BC, Hellboy, A Knight's Tale, Legend of the Guardians, The Hobbit and LOR, Alien vs Predator, The Fifth Element, all Star Treks.
Artist Statement
As a multidisciplinary artist currently focused on abstract painting, I explore the psychology of transformation through layered compositions that evoke emotional and environmental shifts. I work with movement, depth, and light, using texture and metal leaf to suggest organic change. The unpredictable way metal leaf catches light creates surfaces that feel molten—midway between solid and liquid—inviting reflection on impermanence and possibility. My inspiration often comes from nature’s own language of transformation: rivers carving canyons, waves reshaping shorelines, vines overtaking the forgotten. These forces mirror our inner lives—subtle, seismic, and always in motion.
Emerging from a personal search for peace and contentment, my paintings offer a space for introspection and renewal. Titles act as journal prompts, and the visual language encourages emotional engagement and self-inquiry. Each layer becomes a record of change, each piece a conversation about resilience and becoming. A guiding belief in my work—and my life—comes from Robert Louis Stevenson: “To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.” That idea flows through every brushstroke, as I paint the energy between who we are and who we might yet become.
Entities I Support
