Bernardo Ortiz was born in Columbia in 1972. His father was an architect, and from an early age he originally intended to work as his father's assistant, but was inspired to take a different path from the constant influence of reading his aunt's heavily-annotated art books, as well as his brief work in a cardboard box factory, where he had to draw letters and logotypes to be printed onto the boxes.
These life experiences collated to turn Ortiz to art and art writing, and to the diverse relations between image and text. He often intermingles the two, or even substitutes one for the other, recording quotidian or ordinary occurrences on paper and working with the conceptual recording of different aspects of everyday life. In the creation of his work, Ortiz seeks to amplify the differences between what he calls "a support -a page, a sheet of paper, a wall" and its "content -a trace, two words, five blobs of paint, a colour"- in particular how they affect or suit each other. His work is self-referential, but not isolated due to its highly relatable subject matter.
His concerns also lie culturally with his native Columbia, and its various manifestations (in particular, those that are remembered) in the minds of its people. Columbia's political history is explored via the physical recreation of small, remembered "moments" in Columbia, such as typography or a certain colour, to serve as a placeholder for a moment in space and time.
Ortiz's pieces come to the collection bringing joyful and positive qualities of tactility and friendliness. To a collection already focussed strongly on the exploration of different facets of human interaction, Ortiz's small, colourful paintings emit an incredibly communicative voice, appealing to the viewer at a very physical and impulsive level.
Bernardo Ortiz is represented by Casas Riegner, Columbia, www.casariegner.com