Hi, I am Tony Ortega a Denver area artist. I want to talk to you briefly about my current mixed media artwork “La Troca Roja.”
I asked the viewer why do people emigrate? Why do animals emigrate? We immigrate for better living conditions, for our families, to feed ourselves, and to better shelter ourselves. Every year, Latin Americans embarked on a journey in search for the American Dream. Many migrants leave their hometowns escaping poverty, gang violence, and or natural disasters. They leave behind their homes, and most of their belongings with hopes of seeking a better life in the United States. This journey is not easy many of them traveled thousands of miles just to reach the US/Mexico border. Several migrants who cross the border work in the service industry, and many become migrant farm workers who pick our fruits and vegetables. This type of labor is a thankless job that is physically hard, that requires long days in extreme weather conditions, low wages and sometimes working with dangerous farm equipment and or pesticides. At our dining tables, we should thank them for their labor and for providing us with many of our foods.
As an expressionist, I mix digital technology and drawing techniques to create and integrate the resulting designs into traditional printing making. This image “La Troca Roja” is an experimental print with hand coloring. With this artwork, I am exploring a multi-layered image with printmaking techniques such as lithography, silkscreen, and a monotype stencil process. Then, I use acrylic paint and acrylic markers to enhance and embellish the artwork. In my creative process, I used distortion and exaggeration for emotional effect. I apply vivid and dynamic colors by overlaying transparent colors on opaque colors and vice versa. I combine flat space with cubical space. This work interweaves, juxtaposes, and superimposes unlikely images from American and Mexican popular cultures that include icons, symbols, art history, and the modern world to foster opportunities for the bending of meaning.
To find out more about my work, please visit my website tonyortega.net. Thank you, I hope you have enjoyed hearing about my artwork.