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Pía Ortuño (b. 1996 San José) is a Costa Rican artist currently living and working in London. She graduated from the University of Costa Rica with a BA in fine arts (2019) and moved to Pietrasanta, Italy to work and learn ancient marble and bronze techniques. She apprenticed under Jimenez Deredia in his Carrara studio and worked at the Fonderia Artistic Mariani (2020). She recently graduated from Painting at the RCA (2022). 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) and Matter, Flowers Gallery, London 2023. Ortuño has recently exhibited her first solo show A Blue Fire at Incubator Gallery in London. She is currently preparing for her first solo exhibition in `Portugal with Duarte Sequeira Gallery
I approach my practice as Rodin approached a cathedral; imploring myself to understand it as painting, done 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.
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, that form planes for the dance of light and colour that comes to the viewer’s eye into a sense of discovery.