About
     the Artist

Bea Ortiz is a Spanish American visual artist painting and drawing in the Catskills of New York. After studying fine art at the University of Salamanca and completing post-graduate studies in education at the University of Valladolid in her home country of Spain, Bea Ortiz permanently relocated to New York City in 1998 where she maintained an international career as a decorative painter and muralist and also taught art for non-profit organizations in Public Schools and nursing home facilities. During this time, she produced multi-disciplinary performances involving live painting, dance, video and music in New York, Valladolid, and Madrid (Spain). In 2018, she relocated to the Catskills and returned to a full-time art making practice following a life-changing illness.

She has shown in Fundación Canal de Isabel II, (TAC) International Festival of Theater, 1053 Gallery, Green Kill Gallery, CAS Art Center, and represented 1053 Gallery in SCOPE Miami among others.

Artist Statement

I work in a conceptualized palette of Black and White facilitating dialogue with the dualities existing in separation and integration; relationship and opposition; and individuality and interconnection. In this way, I bring light to the darkness and respectively, darkness to light, bearing witness to the interplay of opposites. Flowing through my meditative improvisational image-making is an interest in connective sources such as universal emotional experience and the natural forces which contain, animate and support the living. This process joins image-making with meditative exploration, inviting creativity to flow through me.  

Accessing and surrendering to an unfolding mystery, I allow the brushstrokes to gradually develop the image. The resulting fractal-like drawings and paintings appear to simultaneously embody microcosms; celestial phenomena, black holes, weather systems, cellular division, fluid dynamics—and the macrocosms they inhabit.  

Within these works, intricate patterns and forms emerge, containing the harmonious interplay of opposing forces, the dual energies of yin and yang—darkness and light, expansion and contraction, negative and positive space, seeking to achieve a perfect balance, mirroring my own personal journey. 

I paint and draw with black ink on white surfaces, and white acrylic on surfaces prepared with black gesso. Through meticulous care, I produce extremely smooth surfaces (paper, wood and canvas) which allow me to produce renderings of energetic flows in great detail primarily using very fine brushes. I paint directly without sketching, never knowing what image is going to come forth. This practice is exciting—sometimes it feels risky as I fully embrace the present moment and the unknown.  

In some cases, I arrange individual images in large grid structures, such as Patterns of Change, amplifying concepts of integration and connectedness. My focus is what we relate to as human beings in relationship with our emotions, nature and one another, not in our differences as individuals. 

My work invites viewers to delve into the profound unity that lies beneath the surface of our interwoven existence.