Artist Jacqueline Valenzuela commands attention as she cruises down Whittier Boulevard in East LA behind the wheel of her hot pink 1975 Cadillac Eldorado, affectionately named La Playgirl.
La Playgirl is her first lowrider, a gift her fiance Mark Hocutt bought for her before the engagement. Together, they’ve added unique touches, which Valenzuela jokes are sometimes “weird and uncalled for.”
With stained-glass opera windows and hydraulics primed for a show-stopping bounce, La Playgirl represents Valenzuela’s artistic vision and connection to lowrider culture, a love that’s deeply personal.
For Valenzuela, lowriders are more than just cars. They’re rolling works of art. Each vehicle is a testament to craftsmanship, culture, and individuality.
It’s all about the stained glass opera windows in the back seat. Photo by Brianna Correa.
This connection to cars wasn’t always so obvious at the beginning of her art career. When Valenzuela started painting as an undergrad, her work leaned heavily on themes of her upbringing as the child of immigrants.
“I never felt happy with those paintings,” Valenzuela recalls. “Yes, I’m a child of immigrants, but I’m not an immigrant myself, so it felt a little inauthentic.”
Once she started exploring oil paints and more experimental techniques, Valenzuela found her direction. She realized her true muse had been with her all along.
“I just kept going back to the cars,” she says. “The patterns look like abstract paintings with geometric shapes and bold color palettes.” The lowrider designs, she realized, were compositions in their own right.
This perspective propelled her into the art world, where she’s now making waves as an MFA student at UCLA. In addition to a few solo shows, her work has been featured in dozens of group exhibitions and private collections. She’s even been called upon by brands like Meta and JCPenney.
Her work is currently featured in Best in Low at the Petersen Automotive Museum through the end of May.
In addition to painting on canvas, she paints cars, embracing the intricate, fine-line detailing that defines lowrider art. Overall, her work incorporates strikingly bright hues, detailed depictions of people, car club aesthetics and city influences to showcase femininity in a largely male-dominated field.
While she’s seemingly hit her stride, self-doubt and imposter syndrome do creep in from time to time.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” she explains. “It pushes me to do more, but it can also be debilitating.”
As a woman in a male-dominated car culture, she often faces doubts about her credibility. “People would say, ‘You went to art school — what do you know about cars?’” she laughs. But with La Playgirl as her canvas and her fiancé as her partner in customization, Valenzuela has learned to be indifferent in the face of skepticism.
Her father, while supportive, playfully teases her. He refers to her car as "la lancha," or “the raft,” referencing its oversized presence on the road.
But Valenzuela takes it in stride. For her, lowriding isn’t just about the car, it’s about the joy of being seen and celebrating a culture that embraces individuality.
Now, Valenzuela is carving out space in both the art world and the lowrider scene, blending tradition with innovation. Through her work, she invites viewers to see lowriders not just as vehicles, but as vibrant, cultural expressions, a true collaboration of fine art and street-level ingenuity.
With her career taking off, many wonder what might come next for the artist. Her “five-year plan” is intentionally vague to ensure that there’s always room for her to create.
“A large majority of people that study art don't actually make art in the end, and that's always been my biggest fear,” Valenzuela says. “So straight out of undergrad, I just kept going. I didn't know where I was going, but I was going, and I think that's still my philosophy now.”