My work search for visual clues, metaphors and states of grace that might illuminate how the world of solid surfaces can exist alongside or within the ever-present backdrop of impermanence and change. My intention is to open a window, at least for a moment, where the static experience of a single view gives way to the ecstatic possibilities of the ephemeral. 

Self Portrait Series:  I collaborate with forces inside and outside the studio to make images that explore my own shifting understanding of “the self”.  In the past I have worked with rain and wind and a seasonal leak in the studio. My one rule: never force, always coax these collaborations into being.  More recently, I have been working with dust and debris from my studio floor. Each portrait represents the accumulation of dust from one particular day.  I cut a stencil and use a spray adhesive on mylar to collect the dust and to cast a shadow into each image.  

Old Is New Series: These sculptures are made from a series of paintings that I completed in 2005. Each sculpture is assembled from one painting in the series. The original series was inspired by building facades in and around the city of San Francisco. The powerful act of ripping a finished painting combined with the meditative act of sewing and mending created a new understanding of form and change.

My art explores the way in which we engage with our surroundings and the possible consequences our actions have upon the world in which we live. Through my work I attempt to question the rationale of our choices, and try to reveal the dichotomy that may exist between what we desire and what we manifest. Recently my work has focused upon the mechanisms that power our society and examines how they may influence the construct for a possible future.

While debating demanding topics such as race, religion, or war, it is simple enough to become polarized, and see situations in either black or white, right or wrong. These tactics may satisfy individuals whose position depends on employing policies or implementing strategies that promote specific agendas for a specific constituency. But as an artist, it is more important to create a platform that moves us past alliances, and begins a dialogue that informs, questions, and in some cases even satires our divisive issues. Without this type of introspection, we are in danger of having apathy rule our senses. We can easily succumb to a national mob mentality, and ignore individual accounts and memories. With my work I am creating an intersection where body and place, memory and fact are merged to re-examine human interactions and cultural conditions to create a narrative that requires us to be present and profound.

I strive to imbue anatomy drawings with life and clay figures with emotion. I am fascinated by the human body, amazing machines that are capable of so much and yet so fragile. Complexity exists within them and so much emotion can be expressed through them as we move.
I use tribal themes and designs to honor my ancestors and to express Universal concepts and ideas, concepts that can be felt in the soul, ideas that transcend culture and place, things that we all have in common.

I use oil sticks to stay away from realism. They are large 1/2 or 1.5 inches wide x 6 inches long. Drawing with these sticks keeps me from realism and forces me to use color texture and drawn form to find somethng about the us with color, textura, line position. By not being able to do detail I am forced to express other ideas about the human condition.

David Ortiz, a native Californian, and youngest of 5 children, was raised in Mexicali Baja California, Mexico. He entered San Diego City College, before studying traditional painting at Middlesex University (New Jersey). He returned to San Diego to continue his arts studies at California State University San Marcos (CSUSM), where he started a Japanese language curriculum, immersing himself in Japanese culture, specifically Sumi-e painting and Japanese cinema (1949-1987), and spent a semester at kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata City, Japan. Upon returning to the United States he continued to explore the artistic media such as video arts, painting and Internet based arts. His video work focuses on incorporating traditional visual techniques with novel approaches to still photography. In painting he is explores surrealism, using Japanese painting techniques with modern acrylic media, incorporating both with his interest in his Mexican cultural heritage.