Anna Ortiz
Inspired by the archeology of Mesoamerican figures and the landscape of Mexico, my work serves as a reflection on my Mexican-American identity. As the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, I grew up with one foot in the U.S. and the other in Mexico. My childhood was spent traveling to Mexico each summer to study painting with my grandfather, a professional portrait painter who painted portraits of the elites of Guadalajara. These trips also included studying with one of my aunts, who is a professional sculptor who recognized and encouraged my artistic inclinations since I was a child. My roots as an artist stem from my Mexican side and I was encouraged at an early age to pursue the family legacy.
My paintings reference statuary, botanicals and landscapes I have seen and visited on my travels to Mexico. My paintings are
devotional offerings to an invented place of belonging. Out of the ruins of their previous existence, these new creatures inhabit a borderland between Mexico and the US. Their narrative nature references ancient Aztec and Mayan mythology while reflecting back on current and personal events. Dualities define them; they give them shape. Weaving together invented spaces with references to actual places, the paintings take both a familiar tone and a sense of the uncanny. Taken as a whole, my paintings offer a purview into an invented world existing just slightly out of the realm of possibility. By playing with spatial compression and a filtered palette, I invite viewers to consider the realities we create for ourselves and the possibilities that lie ahead.
Anna Ortiz is a Mexican-American painter living in Brooklyn. Growing up in Worcester Massachusetts, Ortiz spent much of her childhood visiting her family in Guadalajara Mexico. There she studied art with her grandfather Alfonso who was a professional portrait painter as well as with her aunt Lolita, a professional sculptor.
Ortiz’s surrealist landscapes reference the cultural divide she and so many second generation Americans feel. Their narrative nature references ancient Aztec and Mayan mythology while reflecting back on current and personal events. Out of the ruins of their previous existence, these new creatures inhabit a borderland between memory and imagination. Dualities define them; they give them shape. Weaving together invented spaces with references to actual places, the paintings take both a familiar tone and a sense of the uncanny.
Ortiz has had solo exhibitions at Deanna Evans Projects, Dinner Gallery and Proto Gomez in New York. She has shown with Monya Rowe, Huxley-Parlour, My Pet Ram, and Johansson Projects Spring 2024. Her work has been featured in Art Forum, Make Magazine, Artsy and Art Maaze. She has also been interviewed on the Sound and Vision Podcast.
New York Time’s Arts Monthly Curator Insights | by Mark Taylor for SF/Arts
“Anna Ortiz’s large landscapes are rendered in intense monochrome recalling the hours just after sunset, plants and terrain still radiating energy as the light slowly fades.” LINK
Timeless Mesoamerican Desert Landscapes Glow in Anna Ortiz’s Vivid Paintings | by Kate Mothes for Colossal, June 10, 2024
“In a body of recent paintings now on view in the group exhibition Enchanted Lands at Johansson Projects, Ortiz profiles flora common in the Mexican desert. She outlines the orbs of golden barrel cacti or spiky fronds of century plants, placing us in a specific climate and tying each vivid composition to a continuum of timeless geological or celestial events.” LINK
Anna Ortiz | by Gabriel H. Sanchez for Art Forum
Ortiz, who was born to an American mother and a Mexican father, is keenly attuned to the space she occupies: It’s a zone between cultures that’s frequently affected by assimilation. Clearly, she’s looking for signs—not unlike what the migrating Aztecs were doing—that will eventually lead her home.” LINK
10 Contemporary Artists Painting Dreamlike, Fantastical Landscapes | by Samuel Anderson for Artsy, June 29, 2023
‘Isolated yet animated against the desert scrub, her botanical subjects evoke both longing and endurance. “I like to think of the plants as stand-ins for figures—creatures that can feel alone even when together in the desert,” Ortiz said. “That vulnerability lends itself to considering issues of resilience and compassion.”’
Interview with Anna Ortiz | by Andreana Donahue for Maake Magazine, 2023
“My influences include Aztec, Mayan, Zapotec gods and legends. I consider my personal history at the root of this work. As the daughter of a Mexican immigrant and a dual citizen of both the US and Mexico, I’m interested in sharing my affection for Mexico with an American audience.” LINK
