SHOW INFO
HIDE INFOPía 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 later 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). Currently attending the Royal College of Art, Ortuño is pursuing her master’s degree in painting and is the Co-founder of Sala Salon (2021).
“Through the spiritual rituals taught to me as a child in Costa Rica I find, collect, unearth and reveal pockets of time. I listen to the echoes of post-colonial religious iconography, color, and architecture as well as pre-Columbian rituals and bridge these conversations with those of material exploration.
In an ensemble of painting, sculpture, and installation I navigate dimensions of time, the possibilities in ritualistic repetition and the aesthetics of spirituality. By experimenting and transforming materiality I challenge the linear notions of time and embed surfaces with my own history and traditions alongside their own. The alchemical processes that I condemn my materials to endure seek a form of creation that is an ever-changing process of deconstruction and becoming. I seek to excite the viewer’s curiosity and admiration of the elemental.
In this volatile and saturated world, I find relief and calm in the simple smell of salt, the slow oxidizing of nails and the narratives of time in these portals. I have wondered how slowly I can provoke time to pass, and how much attention it is willing to give. I encourage the viewer to explore these harrowing and salty landscapes, to look deep into the cavernous holdings and seek the objects that layer personal and collective memory, and to let time pass through the work and onto themselves.”
