Pía Ortuño (b. 1996 San José) is a Costa Rican artist currently living and working in London. She received her Painting MA from the Royal College of Art in London (2022) and a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Costa Rica (2019). She apprenticed under Jimenez Deredia in Carrara (Italy) and worked with ancient marble and bronze techniques.
Ortuño has exhibited in the Uk and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Shadows, Stables Gallery, Switzerland (2022), Books and Things, Helen J. Gallery Los Angeles (2022), New Ancients, Guts Gallery, London (2023), Matter, Flowers Gallery, London (2023), Marking Time , Cooke Latham Gallery, London (2024), In Continuity, Sherbet Green, London (2024) and Across the Pond, Eric Firestone Gallery, New York (2024) Ortuño has recently exhibited her first solo show A Blue Fire at Incubator Gallery in London and The Day of His Wrath at Duarte Sequeira Gallery in Portugal.
I approach my practice as Rodin approached a cathedral; imploring myself to understand it as painting, made in light and shadow and as sculpture, balanced and proportioned like the human body. Like the cathedral, it encapsulates time, containing traces, memories and echoes.
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My practice is directed by the Costa Rican landscape and customs, from pre-Columbian spiritual rituals to post-colonial religious iconography. The separation from my homeland and the newfound life I am exploring creates in me a split sense of my belonging and personal narrative.
In an ensemble of painting, sculpture and installation I examine the relationship between industrial materials and decomposing metals with natural pigments, traditional mark-making and ritualistic gestures.
I record time in chisel marks, not too shallow and not too deep. They disrupt the surface, forming planes upon which the viewer’s eye can discover a dance of light and colour.