Pia Ortuño: monias

Have you ever seen the optical illusion of the rabbit that turns into a duck? At first glance, it appears to be one animal, but then your mind shifts, transforming the rabbit’s ears into the bill of a duck. Suddenly, you begin to see both, oscillating between the two. This illusion, referenced in E.H. Gombrich’s Art and Illusion, illustrates how perception constructs meaning. Gombrich argues that the image isn’t definitively either animal and never claims to be; yet our minds insist on alternating between both.

Upon visiting her studio in London, sprawled with books and binders - their contents meticulously organized - post-it notes strewn against every surface, and an eight-foot word map across one wall offers a rare glimpse into the complexity of her practice. Ortuño’s sources of inspiration span classical art, art history, philosophy, theosophy, nature, and more. They include figures such as Kandinsky, Heraclitus, Yves Klein, and Maurice Tuchman, as well as organic elements like tree leaves and votive candles. In particular, for her first exhibition in Los Angeles, she finds a connection to Tuchman’s LACMA Exhibition and its accompanying book, The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Paintings 1890-1985. The show explores abstract art’s connection to religion, mysticism, and occultism, in particular, the shift of the eon into the age of Aquarius. These references are internalized and carried into her studio, where they marry with memories of Ortuño’s upbringing on a sugar plantation in Central America.

In this same London studio, thousands of miles from her native Costa Rica, pigmented marble powder is layered upon a series of solid wooden blocks. These reliefs, cloaked in color, light, and shadow, evoke the feeling of canyons carved into the earth, the density of a lush forest, or the softness of velvet. In each work, the viewer senses the tension of oppositional forces pushing and pulling at each other to find the balance of nature. Her art speaks to a personal and cultural splitting, a search for belonging in a world that feels both familiar and alien.

Make Room is proud to present Ceremonias, a new collection of works by Costa Rican-born, London-based artist Pia Ortuño. This is the first solo exhibition for the artist with the gallery and in the United States.

As a sculptor and painter working in abstraction, Ortuño embraces improvisation - her works cracking and evolving into unpredictable natural patterns. Paired with spiritual symbols, the result establishes a sense of duality inherent in form and meaning. The pieces hold onto their physicality as objects, formed and moved by human hands, and resist becoming simply a visual illusion. One can see the lines between each block of wood, creating an array of fissures out of which pours the brightness of the marble dust, like cracks in the surface of volcanic rock.

Her Costa Rican identity and the country's landscape are central to her practice. Alive with bugs, animals, and intense flora, the region’s diverse ecosystem, rugged terrain of volcanoes, and thick rainforest shape a conversation between natural and cultural environments.  These forces that come from the earth are deeply connected to the indigenous art of the region and continue to be prevalent in Ortuño’s work. This connection is central to the spiritual beliefs of the indigenous people of Central America as they have merged under the subjugation of the Spanish colonization and Catholic missions.

This body of work transcends one singular influence. Religion is, unsurprisingly, a key theme of the work; the paintings exist as images inspired by the cultural vibrancy of San Jose. Studying eighteenth-century prayer books, a reimagined image of the Virgin Mary as the “La Virgen de Guadalupe" informs the conceptual framework and palette of the exhibition. This becomes evident in pieces like “Cabeza de agua,” where the saturated color blue and its form evoke the feeling of the ocean as well as the royal blues of the virgin's shawl; the texture creates both the ripples of waves as well as the folds of pigmented cloth.

Latin America is so profoundly influenced by the Catholic church that it encompasses all aspects of life. Art, of course, is no exception. Pia speaks to the fact that growing up, the limited access to fine art was found in a church. Looking up at the ceilings of churches and taking in their powerful architecture while in mass was a way to teach herself about art. The sanctuary of the church later became, in her practice, a powerful place of memory and community that informs her work today.. She merges the aspects of precolonial art, like the bright colors that reflect the nature of the region and the floral patterning of their traditional painting and textiles, into the depictions of catholic imagery. Imbuing native culture into accepted media is a practice that she reflects on in her work. Referencing its powerful history of control, displacement, and cultural exchange.

While impacted by religion, nature, and text, this body of work can be further understood as improvised non-representational abstractions. Like the rabbit-duck illusion, the paintings embody a similar duality. They gesture toward subject matter and lived experience, simultaneously asserting their independence as abstraction. These pieces forever remain undefined. They are reminiscent of the earth and of religion, yet render emotion in their simplicity. Their strength lies in this ability to be read by many - one could gather so much more from their own experience. The viewer could draw a sense of raw beauty, bewilderment, or fluctuating mental states. Each panel could be steps to a dance, or instructions to a ritual. Meaning and narrative in the colorful forms and tactile feeling in the textures create an idea that goes beyond a single relation. Pia Ortuño’s works are connections between people and the world around them.