Tag: Design

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cropped-desert-hawk-eucalyptus-base-garden-shot.jpgI am influenced by my desert surroundings. My studio faces stony mountains and a jagged skyline, such a contrast between sky and land. The heat in the summertime consumes you and demands your attention. During the day the sun lingers high in the sky and the heat remains throughout the night. The silence of the desert accentuates my senses releasing memories along the journey, many times now with a fresh perspective.

 

Fish and BreadI try to imbue thoughts of faith, restoration, and healing within my work. I believe light has healing power for the body, mind and spirit. I add healing soil collected from healing areas in the southwest such as Mission Chimayo and Sedona, AZ. Many of the pieces have the healing soil from the mission integrated into the pieces. The light emitted from the layers cast with phosphorescent powders provides light and pierces the darkness, fading over time to a tiny glow.

 “The most precious light is the one that visits you in your darkest hour!” Mehmet Murat Ildan

My studio is full of shards, artifacts, and salvage. At times, I re-purpose these pieces into my work which provides a pathway to new work and a new direction. I experiment illuminating the work with LED light fixtures as a way of viewing them in a dark setting.  My pieces, when viewed in natural light have distinct characteristics and it is the light effects the LED fixtures provide when viewing in a dark setting that set the piece apart.  A different connection and context is created as the light penetrates the translucent layers and reacts to the layers mixed with phosphorescent powders.

SuperPhoto_Creation_2017-11-08_Nice MysticalWith this new series, I have created a sense of motion in the piece. This new work has the piece hovering and gliding over desert and ocean landscapes or seascapes.   The different pitch provides a sense of descending, flying or a sense of hovering. The changing color of light creates a wide range of spiritual moods, from calmness and healing to a sense of peace.

“Seeking the Sacred V” The last of this series. 18″x 7″x 17″ Alligator Juniper, cast resin, steel ball joint hardware, LED light, UV Light. There is a beautiful planet that lights and glows beautifully under UV light. Seeking the Sacred-WEB strong image enhancedThe elements of earth, air, and water intermingle as an intruder looms above the land. The resin impregnated the live edge of this piece of wood creating a seascape showing a sea floor and a sky hovering over the ocean. Clouds are suspended between layers and emit an eerie glow. An LED pulsates light behind the piece and illuminating a portion of the ray.

If the pieces I create imbue a “mystical” mood to my viewer, I feel I have succeeded in my mission as an artist. If the pieces take you to a journey of deeper perceptive state, even better.

Website Gallery

Lortega777@gmail.com

602-369-3698

 

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Fish and BreadGliding over a canyon drawn by eerie lights penetrating the darkness. The spirit world beckons the arrival of the new light. It brings new meaning, new thoughts of well being, prosperity and peace. The hope that Light illuminates the hope in our lives. 

  “The most precious light is the one that visits you in your darkest hour!” Mehmet Murat Ildan

The arrival of this Light emboldens us to search and find new strength from a revived faith.  The Light allows us to experience a renewing of mind and spirit, bringing new ideas into unfinished parts in our lives.

koi in a circleI continue the theme of Light penetrating the darkness. My pieces act as ” lenses” diffusing LED light through the translucent layers of cast resin. Hidden layers of light come alive in dark settings, creating and emitting their own light illuminating our world.

Mixed media. $350 to $500 .

11″ to 15″ in height- 4″ to ” wide. Cast resins-wood-LED light and steel mounting hardware. The art of Larry Ortega

 

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Exodus A Collection WEB

Seeing the final phase of these pieces: final resin casts, the LED lighting location, additional airbrush detail, sanding, engineering hardware to attach the steel rod to a base.

Flying and hovering and strange night lights all part of the story of Exodus. Freedom is the theme of the Exodus and wings provide a unique freedom. I often have dreams of flying or hovering outside my body. Freedom is a spiritual feeling and is associated with light. SuperPhoto_Creation_2017-10-06 WEB AAAA Wonderful

The cast resin pieces become a lens diffusing LED light through the wing and surrounding area. It’s a soothing light, a light you might see in the distance of the desert wilderness. Exodus is a story of a flight to freedom through a desert wilderness. The journey is illuminated at times with a column of fire or clouds for the masses to follow during the day and during the night. A journey in the desert at night avoids the heat of the desert day and the stars of the night illuminate the desert floor.

New pieces-Cast Resin Wings: 34″-38″ wingspans. LED light-wood and resin bases. Series of 12 available this fall. More at: Online Gallery Website Exodus

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Our personal journeys take us to many places. At times we find ourselves along paths that are unmarked and without light to guide us. We are forced to confront fears that only darkness can produce. But we are driven to explore, it is part of our DNA as humans whether it is reaching to the stars or the depths of the ocean or… the boundaries of our imagination. We begin the journey as children: bringing natural curiosity as artists, scientist, and philosophers.
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A new series of work titled “Beneath the Darkness” reveals imaginary desert and ocean realms. Places and moments of time where light penetrates the darkness providing hope, security, and inspiration. A concealed LED light illuminates the cast resin layers in the cross-like shape and radiates a light within the steel and plexiglass base.

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“Seeking the Sacred”

I had a sense of creating something sacred, perhaps a holy vessel, something that can produce a sense of peace and maybe miraculous healing. My own faith says that is possible. Some say that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening to God. I hope the piece becomes that beacon providing the light into a voyage to a sacred harbor.
Two in a series: Resin-Steel & Light       19″x 11″x4″ See at the Ice House
First Friday April 7th 2017.

www.stor-ybox.com
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As the seasons change, I am transitioning into the hot summer days and nights. My spring work included some of my largest pieces including “Lost Memories” a 7′ casting into the live edge of a Sycamore slab.Lost Memories Hanging-Yellow

 

 

Late spring and going into the summer has me working on a series of cast resin cubes. I have describe some of my pieces as “terraforms” …worlds within worlds and “other worldly”. I see vast desert and ocean wilderness areas that have been part of my entire life. Dry clouds over a horizon, light dancing off the morning water and a millions stars illuminating the night sky.

Cube 2 ObliqArtist Closue up Nice

The desert has played a pivotal role throughout history including the flight of a group of immigrants redeemed from slavery and promised a” land” of milk and honey. A visible sign of an invisible God is seen in the distance.The column penetrates layers of clouds lighting the sky for all to see and never leaving them-strengthening the promise made long ago. Exodus 13:20-22

War of the Worlds

Set on lighted platforms or as a stand alone piece in a garden window and sills. The cubes absorb light energy and exchange it as luminescence, eerie illumination produced.  StoryBox-creations as An Obliq Artist Desert Journey Cube

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Lost Memories Night Shot- 1-16Termite infested and weather worn; a crooked wooden slab… perfect for reclaiming and restoring lost memories. Inner hostilities confronted the lost memories at every turn and I realize how life shapes these thoughts. I’m aware of these forces fighting within me. There are  jagged and sharp pitted edges shaped by nature and the exposed elements, a lifeless but beautiful fragment of a once prosperous life; a majestic Sycamore tree once living the wilderness experience to its fullest.

 

 

Sycamore Ariozona

The  process of creating my art becomes a”fetish” experience, a repetition of shaping, smoothing and sanding translucent layers of resin layers cast into the decayed live edge of wood. It is like providing life in the dead arteries of the tree. I seem to work very hard doing this. It is hard work to regenerate this seven foot piece…but I must, its that inner conflict and hostility and good must prevail.

Dark MemoriesLight beckons the viewer to experience light, its an “eerie” glow that lasts well into the night. The light beckons the viewer to touch the smooth and now alive and transformed piece of wood. Light brings life to art and to life itself.

“We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix