Biography of Mar Ortega

Mar Ortega (Valencia, 1981) is a multidisciplinary artist. She holds a degree in Fine Arts and a master’s degree in Artistic Production from the Universitat Politècnica de València. Her practice understands matter not simply as a support, but as an active force in the construction of the image.

Her work encompasses painting, monotype, collage, mixed media on canvas and paper, and processes of patination, oxidation and abrasion on metal. Through layers, transfers, glazes, resist techniques, incisions and fragments, she creates conditions in which time, transformation and contingency can act physically upon the work. The image does not merely represent these processes: it is formed through them.

Ortega begins with a precise knowledge of materials without seeking to control them completely. Reaction, wear, displacement and error introduce unforeseen results that may be incorporated or left visible. Traces and accidents become information about the process. The surface retains both the artist’s decisions and the changes produced during its making, while light, texture and reflection extend its transformation in the presence of the viewer. Artistic practice operates as a form of attention and knowledge: it makes it possible to observe how something changes and what remains after that change.

Her work has been presented at the Confucius Institute of the Universitat de València, Centre d’Art Taller d’Ivars, Jardí Botànic of the Universitat de València as part of Incubarte VI, Sala de Exposiciones de Caixa Rural d’Onda, and Museo de Arte Virreinal (Casa Humboldt) in Mexico. Her graphic work is also held in the latter institution’s Art and Graphic Work Collection.