SWALLOWING THE OCEAN, INTERNALIZING THE SEA: NEW PAINTINGS BY IZABELLA ORTIZ
(November 10, 2022 - January 28, 2023)
“My mother is Australian and my father French- Colombian and, as a child I lived in France, in Australia and also in Alaska. My painting is impregnated with Inuit, Aboriginal and Indian myths, tales and legend...” – Izabella Ortiz
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Mixed media on paper
70.87 x 43.31 inches
180 x 110 cm
IzO 97
Cavin-Morris Gallery is proud to present this third one-person show of dramatic, spiritually abstract works by Izabella Ortiz. Ortiz’s work has been shown minimally in Europe under the vague genre of Art Singulier, a title roughly equivalent to what some call Outsider Art in the United States. In Europe Art Singulier originated from Jean Dubuffet’s category for artists whose work he deemed to have more sophistication and less isolation than the classic artists of Art Brut. Neuve Invention (new invention) is the somewhat ambiguous term Dubuffet gave to this category of art.
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
11.61 x 8.23 inches
29.5 x 20.9 cm
IzO 109
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
11.61 x 8.23 inches
29.5 x 20.9 cm
IzO 110
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
11.22 x 8.23 inches
28.5 x 20.9 cm
IzO 111
Two common aspects of Art Singulier are horror vacuii (a filling in of every possible inch of surface) and often an almost geometric sense of symmetry. A major point of differentiation for the self-taught Ortiz is her complete control of asymmetrical balance by merging the forward, backward, above and below in intricate and dense compositions based around her themes of the intense miasmic otherworldly presence of water, and her dance on the edge of its natural chaos.
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
19.09 x 13.94 inches
48.5 x 35.4 cm
IzO 102
Izabella Ortiz
Forest Spells, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
12.44 x 9.37 inches
31.6 x 23.8 cm
IzO 112
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
15.63 x 11.77 inches
39.7 x 29.9 cm
IzO 113
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
70.5 x 43.25 inches
179.1 x 109.9 cm
IzO 98
A major physical and emotional crisis, life changing in scope, led her to bring the deeper aspects of Nature to her work. Painting became a form of self-healing. She created it for personal balance, not for the canons of the art world.
Current events are focused now on Nature’s giving and taking away of water, from drought to flood. Water is one of the most pressing needs of Mankind. Ortiz has swallowed the oceanic, internalized the sea, the watery world hers to order, intermingling the messy visibility and the beautiful entangled animistic intensity of the sea. There are creatures, plants, and the almost psychotropic movement of line and atmosphere. In fact, it is the movement in her exquisitely colored scapes that holds our rapt attention. She combines water, blood, rain, and currents in her water paintings and catches the language and intricate geological motion of the land itself.
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
16.97 x 13.94 inches
43.1 x 35.4 cm
IzO 106
Izabella Ortiz
Sea Spells, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
13.8 x 17.5 inches
35.1 x 44.5 cm
IzO 107
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
27.13 x 19.29 inches
68.9 x 49 cm
IzO 104
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
19.61 x 24.65 inches
49.8 x 62.6 cm
IzO 105
“My dreams are my capacity of transcending everything I intercept, absorb, everything that impregnates me for me to better spill it all out when creating. All my paintings are “automatic” and therefore, take life directly on the paper: forms and materials whisper to me what to do. “
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
70.25 x 42.75 inches
178.4 x 108.6 cm
IzO 99
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
70 x 43 inches
177.8 x 109.2 cm
IzO 100
This is her third exhibition in the United States. The second show was during lockdown. Now is a chance to view these important paintings up close. We believe she has transcended category. We feel privileged to live with these powerful paintings again.
Izabella Ortiz
Water Memories, 2022
Ink, watercolor, felt pen, colored pencil, acrylic paint on paper
63.35 x 26.85 inches
160.9 x 68.2 cm
IzO 101