Raúl Ortiz: Landscape Compositions is on display through October 28 in the 8th floor exhibit cases at Harold Washington Library Center.
Raúl Ortiz creates paintings that reinterpret/reframe and update the landscape with a contrasting contemporary twist. He juxtaposes colorful expressive brushstrokes, patches of flat spaces for contemplation and randomly framed areas by the use of a silhouetted image, e.g. a tree or flora. He uses manipulated photocopies of photographs taken on walks during trips or around town.
Ortiz was born in Mexico (Ocampo, Guanajuato) and moved to Chicago when he was 5. He received his bachelor of fine arts in 2001 from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has exhibited at such venues as the University Club of Chicago, the Old Town Art Center, the Rockford Art Museum and the Wright Museum of Art, Beloit, Wis. He also was an artist-in-residence in 2005 at The Cliff Dwellers. He lives and works in Chicago.
