Dave Ortiz “The 20 Year Retrospective”
Joseph Gross Gallery
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ArtNowNY presents a retrospective of artworks by Dave Ortiz, with a focus on his paintings and drawings from the last 20 years. Well known in the graffiti and street art community as an original team member of Zoo York and founder of DQM, this exhibition will be the first solo gallery show in over a decade for the local artist and designer, and represents the opportunity to recontextualize his fine art practice amidst his commercial endeavors. Dave Ortiz: The 20 Year Retrospective will be the first opportunity to survey the artist’s complete body of work, and represents the establishment of Ortiz as a fine artist in his own right.
Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1980s Ortiz was swept up in the graffiti zeitgeist, but eventually turned to painting after realizing the aesthetic potential he was able to develop in a more traditional studio practice. Long influenced by the classical sculpture and Impressionistic works he viewed in New York City museums, Ortiz found himself developing a visual shorthand that married the seemingly disparate worlds of street art and fine art. His figurative work is equally influenced by Matisse as cartoon imagery—where the attention-grabbing colors and heavy outlining typically associated with graffiti writing is combined with references to Greek antiquity in the missing limbs or broken bodies of his characters. The mix of mediums crosses boundaries as well, with the artist employing traditional acrylic painting alongside spray paint and the paint markers often associated with quick tagging.
Ortiz’s work can be classified somewhere between the figurative and abstract, with a busy, vibrant, and chaotic energy that pervades all topics and genres. Elements of social realism enter in his series of portraits documenting the people in his neighborhood: The Junky, The Colored Man, and The Tranny are immortalized by artworks in their likeness, a tribute normally reserved for the rich and powerful but here extended by Ortiz to the people that have influenced and shaped his everyday experience.
The commercial goods and design work of Dave Ortiz, where he has collaborated on everything from custom bikes and skateboards to much coveted series of Nikes, has garnered popularity and acclaim for his particular brand of inventive visual language—creating imagery that is equal parts throwback and fresh. However, it has been in his fine art practice that he developed his confidence and worldview, and it is to this place that he returns with an intensely renewed focus. Ortiz strikes out now to redefine his art apart from his “simple and straightforward,” design work, and to pursue fine art as a means for the contemplation of larger ideas, where there are no direct questions or answers.
Born in East New York in 1970 Dave Ortiz got his start in BMX, skating and graffiti, ultimately going on to become an establishing member of Dave’s Quality M3AT aka DQM, and Dave’s Warehouse, as well as ANOTHERWHIP bike company. He has developed design collaborations with Nike, Addidas, Vans, Converse Project Red, and G-Shock, among others. His work has been exhibited in group shows at McCaig-Wells Gallery, Art Bar New York, White Gallery, Max Fish and the Bring Back the Boardwalk Fundraiser.
Media
Schedule
from July 11, 2013 to July 20, 2013
Opening Reception on 2013-07-11 from 18:00 to 22:00