Bernardo Ortiz

Bernardo Ortiz’s practice unites drawing, writing, and design through the concept of the “page”—a material aide that also functions as a discursive space. For Ortiz, the boundaries between these two dimensions remain fluid: the page can be opaque or transparent, have duality, and exist somewhere between the real and the abstract. His disruptions are deliberately subtle, using sharp, delicate lines made with pencil, thin layers of gouache, oil paint, and enamel, alongside words and phrases often drawn from poems, lyrics, and literary works. These elements transform the page into a space where language and image coexist.

Time and materiality are central to Ortiz’s approach, with his restrained streaks and layered surfaces suggesting processes of accumulation, repetition, and duration. His works read as literary drawings, where fragments of text become visual as much as linguistic elements, introducing ambiguity. Ortiz explores the page as a complex arena, a physical space—one that can hold traces of thought, memory, and fiction while questioning the distinction between image and language. The apparent simplicity of his works encourages a slow, attentive encounter, revealing the page not simply as a support for an artwork, but as the subject, material, and conceptual space in which the work takes place.