"Ghosts in the Valley" presents several large-scale oil paintings on canvas that draw inspiration from the Queer Silicon Valley Archive. These portraits capture intimate moments between LGBTQ+ communities in Palo Alto—gatherings at gay bars, home weddings, and seemingly mundane connections that were once criminalized. Through rich textures and emotive brushwork, these paintings invite viewers to feel a profound temporal connection—a conversation across decades between those who fought for the right to exist openly and those facing renewed threats to these hard-won freedoms today.

For this solo exhibition at the Rinconada Gallery in Palo Alto, Aleo Landeta created this work as both celebration and warning, looking to the archive not merely as historical documentation but as a blueprint for resilience. In rendering these ordinary moments of extraordinary courage, they hope viewers experience a sense of tender recognition—seeing how the past lives within our present struggles and how these historical intimacies offer guidance for navigating contemporary challenges. The paintings ask us to consider what we've inherited from these ghosts in the valley, and how their persistent intimacy might illuminate our path forward.