Valera is an American artist who was born in the former part of the Soviet Union known as Republic of Uzbekistan. He has a Master of Fine Arts, over 35 years of experience in oil and water-based media painting, drawing, and sculptures, is a private teacher and has worked on several M. Night Shyamalan films as a sculptor and scenic designer including “After Earth” and “The Last Airbender.”  Valera is an award-winning muralist and stained-glass sculptor, as well, and was the principal artist for the Interior Mural Projects in the Textile Worker Union Palace in Russia.

In 1977, he started working at the Uzbek Film Studio as a scenic designer. Shortly after, he became a freelance artist and was selected to create expositions for various state-funded art projects including the State Museum of Natural Science; Uzbekistan Cultural Center; and the International Hotel in Osh City, Kyrgyzstan. In the 1990s during the Civil War, he had to flee the country. Upon returning to Uzbekistan, he continued to work as a non-conformist artist. 

In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, he started traveling and working as an artist and had group and solo exhibitions in Greece, Switzerland, Germany and Hungary.  In 1994, he emigrated to the United States with his family and currently lives in Philadelphia where he continues to work as a freelance artist and exhibit regularly including solo shows at The Jane Voorhees Zemmerli Art Museum, Agora and Art Yama Galleries, SOHO, New York, NY, Foundation Demidoff, Montreal, and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Russia.

Valera has been commissioned to do figurative paintings in the USA, Greece, Canada and Switzerland.  His work is widely collected and in the private collections of Norton Dodge, Leo Vayn and Alexander Glaser.