- Artist:
- Aitor Ortiz
- Date:
- 2007
- Technique:
- Digital print on aluminium
- Dimensions:
- 125 x 250 cm
- Origin:
- Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani de Palma
- Registration number:
- 609
- Edition:
- 2/3
“ […] A sharp cut sections the stone to provide a space. A space of privacy opens up on the imposing stone wall, a gentle light which illuminates the interior and projects to the exterior like an invitation to refuge: an illuminated hollow.[…].
Aitor Ortiz
Begun in 2004, the series “Muros de luz” is a project based on the remains of the black marble quarry in Markina, Bizkaia (Basque Country) as a base material, the void in the mountain that he photographed every now and then. The images are in black and white, an appearance he often resorts to in his work in order to distance himself when contemplating the image. The series, which he produced in collaboration with architect Josep Egea, reveals the passage of the representation towards the construction of new spaces, of an ephemeral nature, taking advantage of the marks left in the quarry. The images, stripped of their original identity, are digitally intervened: Ortiz inserts quadrangular forms which transcend the thick walls, gaps that project potent halos of white light from their interior, giving rise to those “light refuges” as he defines them. The power of matter, the wall that exists, contrast with the new unreal spaces created by our mind.
E.B.
Aitor Ortiz lives and works in Bilbao where, after taking technical studies in image and sound, he decided to devote himself to photography. His professional activity as a photographer of architecture created by others coexists with his artistic facet, developed in the mid-1990s, for which imagined architecture – constructed on the basis of real, sometimes anonymous or deserted spaces – was for a time his main theme.
Ortiz conceives construction and deconstruction of the image as the starting point for his creation. The space created is the result of his intervention on reality using photographs of buildings that have been digitally retouched and treated with infographics in order to offer a disquieting, timeless image of the object, avoiding its recognition. His works are conceived in series so as to exhaustively develop different aspects of a spatial motif, as is reflected by “Destructuras” (2000), “Modular.mod” and “Modular.rec” (2002-2003), “Muros de luz” (2005-2007) or “Millau” (2008), for example. From an analytical perspective, he conceives the process as an element that is just as important as the final result: he dissects the architectural object, reconstructing it, removes the image obtained from pure formal recognition and fozcusses on space.
He defines his own language using elements inherent in architecture such as scale and its modification – a component which conditions the spectator’s viewpoint – along with others typical of photography, such as focus. The study of structure, light as a configurating element and even the use of tilting supports to play with perspective (in the case of “Modular.mod”), confer a halo of timelessness on his works. Aside from photography, he has developed several projects resorting to other media such as the installation -GAP, Amorfosis or Espacio Latente– or specific interventions such as the one performed in the Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao in 2007. In some of them, he combines the use of different media, as in Destructuras or Muros de luz, where as well as photography, he experiments with video.
From the beginning of his artistic career Aitor Ortiz has won diverse prizes: Lux de Oro (Barcelona, 1994), First Prize “Villa de Madrid” (Madrid, 1996), Grand Prix at the Alexandria Biennial, (Egypt, 2001), Premio ABC de Fotografía (2002) and Premio Ciutat de Palma d’Arts Plàstiques (Palma de Mallorca, 2006). His work has been exhibited in the Sala Rekalde (Bilbao, 2002), Artium de Álava (Vitoria, 2006), Koldo Mitxelena (San Sebastián, 2009), Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid, 2009), Swedish National Museum of Photography (Stockholm, 2011), Museo Guggenheim Bilbao (2011) and Sala Canal de Isabel II (Madrid, 2013). His work forms part of the collections of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid), Artium de Álava (Vitoria), Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (Valencia), Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Fundació “la Caixa”, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Unión Fenosa (A Coruña), among others.
E.B.
