Excerpt from a letter to Professor Midori Yamamura in Feb. 2014:
"The piece, "Drawer" (link: http://mjortegon.weebly.com/drawer.html) is a mixed media assemblage concept that acts as a tribute to melancholia, the bittersweet hope for the future and it lightly touches on the epidemic of single mother-hood inflicted onto many women of minority groups. A collection of found metal pieces are suspended from the ceiling on fishing wire above a mounted wooden drawer. Above the drawer and behind the suspended metal objects, hangs an enlarged colored photograph printed from an industrial printer, accentuated with watercolors. Two women can be found standing happily side by side in a patio. I have used this image in some other projects. I am attracted to it's irony, sincerity, and foreshadowing.
While the women stand gleefully in this patio, it looks like a joyous scene. This pregnant woman is a sign of a hopeful future. The woman standing next to her has a diamond shape over her face in representation of the stability and companionship that women are taught to seek. Instead of a male mate, a friend is standing in for support. They stand in a dirty patio surrounded by filthy walls, a murky and unkempt fish tank on the side, and a pair of forgotten slippers that seem to have been laid out to dry for too long. The dilapidation of their surroundings is a bittersweet antithesis to their current moods that their physical stances project. Instead, this scene illustrates the lower social class they derive from and the disillusion and rough life that accompanies it.
The drawer and metal pieces are both found objects. I enjoy using materials that I can easily access. They are a sincere representation of my environment. They are a small example of a bigger pattern. In geology, there is a term called Cleveage. It is basically is the different ways that a mineral can break. The different patterns and forms depend and differ from mineral to mineral. These loose bits that break away can be analyzed in a molecular level to identify the actual rock and how it was formed. These patterns are eternal. Urban found metals are our social cleavage. It shows who lives there. What type of knobs, screws and mechanisms that were created by say brain patterns, social patterns, speech patterns, movement patterns, thinking patterns, architectural patterns (e.g. the patio.). I showed this piece through a pop-up DIY group show in Bushwick on November 27, 2011."
"The piece, "Drawer" (link: http://mjortegon.weebly.com/drawer.html) is a mixed media assemblage concept that acts as a tribute to melancholia, the bittersweet hope for the future and it lightly touches on the epidemic of single mother-hood inflicted onto many women of minority groups. A collection of found metal pieces are suspended from the ceiling on fishing wire above a mounted wooden drawer. Above the drawer and behind the suspended metal objects, hangs an enlarged colored photograph printed from an industrial printer, accentuated with watercolors. Two women can be found standing happily side by side in a patio. I have used this image in some other projects. I am attracted to it's irony, sincerity, and foreshadowing.
While the women stand gleefully in this patio, it looks like a joyous scene. This pregnant woman is a sign of a hopeful future. The woman standing next to her has a diamond shape over her face in representation of the stability and companionship that women are taught to seek. Instead of a male mate, a friend is standing in for support. They stand in a dirty patio surrounded by filthy walls, a murky and unkempt fish tank on the side, and a pair of forgotten slippers that seem to have been laid out to dry for too long. The dilapidation of their surroundings is a bittersweet antithesis to their current moods that their physical stances project. Instead, this scene illustrates the lower social class they derive from and the disillusion and rough life that accompanies it.
The drawer and metal pieces are both found objects. I enjoy using materials that I can easily access. They are a sincere representation of my environment. They are a small example of a bigger pattern. In geology, there is a term called Cleveage. It is basically is the different ways that a mineral can break. The different patterns and forms depend and differ from mineral to mineral. These loose bits that break away can be analyzed in a molecular level to identify the actual rock and how it was formed. These patterns are eternal. Urban found metals are our social cleavage. It shows who lives there. What type of knobs, screws and mechanisms that were created by say brain patterns, social patterns, speech patterns, movement patterns, thinking patterns, architectural patterns (e.g. the patio.). I showed this piece through a pop-up DIY group show in Bushwick on November 27, 2011."