Anna Ortiz is a Mexican-American painter living in Brooklyn. Growing up in Worcester Massachusetts, Ortiz spent much of her childhood visiting her family in Guadalajara Mexico. There she studied art with her grandfather Alfonso who was a professional portrait painter as well as with her aunt Lolita, a professional sculptor.
Ortiz’s surrealist landscapes reference the cultural divide she and so many second generation Americans feel. Their narrative nature references ancient Aztec and Mayan mythology while reflecting back on current and personal events. Out of the ruins of their previous existence, these new creatures inhabit a borderland between memory and imagination. Dualities define them; they give them shape. Weaving together invented spaces with references to actual places, the paintings take both a familiar tone and a sense of the uncanny.
Ortiz has had solo exhibitions at Deanna Evans Projects, Dinner Gallery and Proto Gomez in New York. She has shown with Monya Rowe, Huxley-Parlour and My Pet Ram. Her work has been featured in Art Forum, Make Magazine, Artsy and Art Maaze. She has also been interviewed on the Sound and Vision Podcast.