The Encounter PDF flip book

My studio has an abundance of resin and wood shards,
artifacts from past projects, and salvage, things I
cannot throw away. It is full of music as well and my
mind wanders through the biblical stories of the
Exodus, where guiding lights and columns of clouds
and fire are found along a desert journey.

Before starting work, I muse on some of my common
themes in my work, the themes of healing and
restoration. Bits and pieces of memory are stored in
the shards of my work, time is captured and measured
in these lifeless pieces. I release these contained
memories through my process in the studio fashioning
these memories into my mixed media pieces using
resin, LED lighting, wood and steel.

At times, I fashion myself as an alchemist,
seeking a way to release memories
“stored” in the pieces. I know they are in
there and trying to make the memory into
something it is not.

I am drawn to restoring distressed wood,
repurposing it, fill in the cracks and splits in
the wood. I try to create commonalities
between the materials by fusing the wood
with resin and light.

The distressed wood has its own unique
story, fed by time itself. Light seems to
bring the lifeforce to my work at times
pulsating life itself.

An Obliq Artist

The perception of these works shifts as the color of
light is changed, at one point a sunset at another time
a twilight in the desert or ocean landscape. Any light
“charges” the phosphorescent layers in the work to
produce a radiant quality…an eerie glow. That “glow”
dissipates over time but may remain a subtle light
throughout the night, only to be charged the by the
light of a new day.

“I test my work by studying the pieces in the dark in my outside studio. I
look for luminosity and the character of light character in the piece”

There is a solitude that only nature can
provide, its an awareness of existing within
the universe. Forever imprinted on my mind
are desert wilderness skies silhouetted
against the edges of a jagged land. My latest
pieces are influenced by the sights
and sounds of the desert and the sea. These
memories have strongly influenced my work
as I re-imagine the wide open panorama of
the desert.

An Obliq Artist

[email protected]
@ANOBLIQARTIST

www.facebook.com/larry.ortega.73

602-369-3698

An Obliq Artist