Pia Octuno : A Blue Fire

Through the spiritual rituals taught to her as a child in Costa Rica,  Pía Ortuño finds, collects, unearths and reveals pockets of time. Like an ancient alchemist, she listens to the echoes of post-colonial religious iconography, colour and architecture as well as pre-columbian rituals and bridges these conversations with those of material exploration. 

Working with painting, sculpture and installation, Ortuño explores the possibilities held in ritualistic repetition and the aesthetics of spirituality and challenges the linear notions of time, embedding surfaces with her own history and traditions alongside their own. The alchemical processes that she condemns her materials to endure, enabling a form of creation that is an ever-changing process of deconstruction and becoming:

“In this volatile and saturated world, I find relief and calm in the simple smell of salt, the slow oxidising of nails and the narratives of time in these portals. I have wondered how slowly I can provoke time to pass, how much attention it is willing to give. I encourage the viewer to explore these harrowing and salty landscapes, to look deep into the cavernous holdings and seek the objects that layer personal and collective memory, and to let time pass through the work and onto themselves.”