As she works out these relationships on canvas, Valentine’s painting process mimics the life process, and her painting takes a step away from pure representation toward abstraction. She reworks the figure constantly, adding and taking away definition, letting the space creep in, only to go back and reclaim the figure’s presence. By working with different methods of rendering, she pulls the eye toward more “finished” parts of the canvas while leaving other areas open, creating room for the eye to move freely through broad sections of color.