FLEISCHMANNS — 1053 Gallery will present, “Colored,” a solo exhibit of works by artist Dave Ortiz from June 15 through July 28, with an opening reception from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday, June 15. The exhibit includes 50 paintings and 16 sculptures made within the last year by Ortiz, who lives and works in Delhi and NYC.
According to a media release, “Colored” represents Ortiz’ foray into landscape painting and sculpture, as he brings his signature bold color ways and playful sentiment to new-to-him media. The pieces take turns standing sentinel and animating the room, giving glimpses into the artist’s history — he came of age in the 70s and 80s East New York street art scene before trading walls and paint cans for the silk screen — and illuminate his increasing love for the bucolic Catskill Mountains, where he’s lived the last three years.
Today, Ortiz’ edge has found a new home in psychedelic renderings of his environment, the fierce guardianship of wooden soldiers and subliminal messaging hidden in canvases.
Ortiz often honors his Nuyorican identity and Boricua heritage through his art, showing his pride as a man of color through works like the Goya Series, a Warhol-esque take on the Latin American food brand, and The Alphabet of a Colored Man, shown at Birdsong in 2023, a tribute to his Puerto Rican grandmother.
However, in his latest exhibit, he’s taken a more subtle approach to thinking about race, quietly painting the red, black and green of the Black Power flag into his canvases.
As further stated in the release, what sets this exhibit apart from his former shows is that the viewer is privy to his process of expansion, both personally and artistically, as he weaves more imaginative realms into his works, leaning into his intuition.
In the Relay series, he is seen reworking and re-purposing the painted canvases of a friend, Heleen Heyning. He began those works by painting blues and yellows, in a contemplative process to find his way back to stillness after all the movement leading up to and surrounding his last exhibit. The canvases are imbued with an invisible painted foundation, from which he initiated a deductive process to simplify the picture plane into monochromatic works on which he painted the horizon, keeping some elements of the original pieces in this unofficial collaboration.
Ortiz attended and graduated from the Fine Arts School at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in NYC and internationally.
His former career as a designer, including Dave’s Quality Meat (his own store), and collaborations with companies like Zoo York, Nike, Adidas, Vans and Converse, is echoed in Squares, a series of bold, graphic acrylics on wood panel, that highlight his contemplations as a self-described “colorist.”
About 1053 Gallery
Founded in 2021 by Mark and Maritza Birman to focus on purposeful growth in the region, 1053 Gallery joined the burgeoning contemporary art scene in the Catskills region of Upstate New York. Representing the multidisciplinary work of emerging and mid-career artists, the gallery aspires to bridge the gap between the rural and cosmopolitan, inviting community engagement and international appeal. The gallery is directed by visual artist, Monte Wilson, and curated by writer, Lindsay Comstock. It is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday and by appointment.
Call 845-254-3461 or visit 1053gallery.com for more information and to schedule an appointment.