Timken Museum of Art Announces Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio as 2024 Summer Artist-in-Residence to Create a Series of New Works Entitled In Blue Time
Artist Residency: June 5 – 28, 2024
On View: July 17 - September 29, 2024
Larger-than-life mural will fill an entire wall in the Timken’s Dutch/Flemish Gallery.
The Timken Museum of Art has announced Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio, known for her monumental wall drawings, as its 2024 summer artist-in-residence. For the Timken’s popular, annual summer installation, Ortiz-Rubio will create a large mural titled, In Blue Time, inspired by the Timken’s 1557 painting, Parable of the Sower, by artist Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Starting in early June, Ortiz-Rubio will work regularly in the Museum’s Dutch/Flemish Gallery to create a wall drawing that extends the hazy, blue background of Brueghel’s composition beyond the limits of its 16th-century picture frame. Ortiz-Rubio’s work will occupy an entire wall in the Museum’s Dutch/Flemish Gallery from early June through September 29. Ortiz-Rubio will be onsite at the Timken, June 5-28, as the wider creative process for In Blue Time unfolds and comes to life. The public is welcome to visit the Timken and watch the artist at work.
The installation In Blue Time will be an exploration of memory, distance, and as the title suggests, the color blue. As Ortiz-Rubio stated, “Memory is written once, then rewritten, manipulated, reinvented and recreated. Each time we reach for a memory it becomes something else. Forgetting is the distance from our past, the nebulous blue horizon of a memory standing at the edge allowing us to continuously reshape who we are.”
In addition to In Blue Time in the Dutch/Flemish Gallery, Ortiz-Rubio has exciting plans for the Timken’s temporary Exhibition Gallery. Ortiz-Rubio will delve into her longstanding interest in memory, color, and atmospheric perspective—the observation that forms become less distinct as they recede in pictorial space. She will create one or two large monochromatic blue drawings on paper, exploring her personal take on the experience of memory and forgetting. Additionally, an insightful collection of Ortiz-Rubio’s small, mixed-media studies of atmospheric perspective in other paintings in the Timken collection will be on display. Finally, a recent large-scale drawing, created in collaboration with musical composer Stefan Cwik and inspired by the concept of time, will be installed, furthering the summer’s In Blue Time theme.
Originally from Mexico, Ortiz-Rubio describes her upcoming summer residency as one based on memory. In preparing for In Blue Time, Ortiz-Rubio has been exploring the concepts and neurological processes of remembering and forgetting through poetic and philosophical approaches. One of her sources of research is "A Field Guide to Getting Lost" by American writer Rebecca Solnit, where the author defines memory as “the blue of distance” referring to the blues of atmospheric perspective used in classical painting.
“Brueghel’s Parable of the Sower has always been one of my favorite paintings at the Timken, primarily because of the wonderful sense of distance and his use of color and texture at the horizon line,” stated Ortiz-Rubio. “This is where my ideas for the residency began. While I will be creating a larger piece in conversation with the Brueghel, I also have some smaller plans for other artworks in the collection.”
Ortiz-Rubio’s interest in murals has always existed since she grew up surrounded by them in Mexico City. They have been a part of her visual and cultural experience, but Ortiz-Rubio did not create her first mural until 2018 for a temporary installation at Bread & Salt Gallery in San Diego. Other works by Ortiz-Rubio have appeared at Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT) in the Zona Río district of Tijuana, Mexico, the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library and Quint Gallery, both in San Diego, and on the Orchid Building in the Normal Heights neighborhood of San Diego. Her Covid Mural at Bread & Salt Gallery was commissioned by the California Health Department and is still visible today.
2024 Summer Installation in the Dutch/Flemish Gallery
“At the Timken, I will be playing with the atmospheric perspective of the Parable of the Sower and its horizon line as a metaphor for memory, Ortiz-Rubio explained. “That landscape which we see at a distance, in between layers of atmosphere, barely visible, with no marked definitions, is a visual representation of the experience of memory. The further we are from that memory, the less clear and more affected we are by layers of time, interpretation and forgetting.”
In preparing for the 2024 summer installation, Derrick R. Cartwright, PhD., the Timken’s director of curatorial affairs, reflected, “Over the past several years, the Timken Museum of Art's summer artist-in-residency has become a significant focal point of our annual exhibition program. A large, diverse audience witnesses creative people at work and experiences how our historic collections still carry meaning in contemporary life.”
Cartwright continued, “Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio is a gifted artist. Her immersive drawings really have to be seen to be believed. Having leading San Diego artists intervene in the galleries and reinterpret the Museum's remarkable permanent collection is a privilege and always exciting to behold.”
Cartwright concluded by saying, “We always learn from our artists-in-residence. I can't wait to see how In Blue Time lastingly affects our perception of Brueghel's Parable of the Sower, one of the most celebrated paintings in Southern California."
Artist Statement
In Blue Time is an exploration of memory, distance, and the color blue. Memory is written once and then rewritten, manipulated, reinvented, and recreated. Each time we reach for a memory it becomes something else. We are not our memories but our interpretation of those memories. We are our reconstruction of memories within our circumstances of remembering at a specific time. Forgetting becomes an essential part of how we may define ourselves. It is the distance from our past, the nebulous blue horizon of a memory standing at the edge of forgetting which allows us to continuously reshape who we are.
This is an exhibition that delves into how time is experienced, recorded, erased, and transformed within our minds by the use of memory.
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Summer Installation: In Blue Time
Artist-in-Residence: Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio
Inspired by Pieter Brueghel’s Parable of the Sower, 1557
Artist Residency: June 5 – 28, 2024
On View: July 17 - September 29, 2024
Tuesday, July 16, 2024 | 10 - 11am
Hosted by Derrick Cartwright, PhD., Timken Director of Curatorial Affairs
Featuring Guest Artist Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio - Contemporary Artist
Join us for a conversation and first look with Timken Director of Curatorial Affairs, Derrick Cartwright, Ph.D., and 2024 Summer Artist-in-Residence, Tatiana-Ortiz Rubio, about the process and behind-the-scenes of In Blue Time.
Tickets: Free for Members / $15 Non-Members
Learn More: https://www.timkenmuseum.org/calendar/event/curator-conversation-in-blue-time/
Timken Museum of Art – Balboa Park
1500 El Prado
San Diego, CA 92101
619.239.5548
www.timkenmuseum.org
Museum Open: Wednesday-Sunday: 10am-5pm
Artist on site: Wednesday-Friday: 10am-3:30pm
Free admission, always.
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