Woman With Flower in Hat Painting

Growing up in East New York in the 70s and 80s Ortiz was swept up in the graffiti zeitgeist but eventually decided to turn to fine art and painting. He attended and graduated from the Fine Arts School at FIT in New York City. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at McCaig-Wells Gallery (NYC), Sensei Gallery (NYC), White Gallery (NYC), Joseph Gross Gallery and ArtNowNY (NYC), 2222 Jefferson (St. Louis, MO), Our/ Berlin (Berlin, Germany) et al. Dave Ortiz work is in many private collections. As an entrepreneur Dave has collaborated with Nike, Adidas, Vans, Converse Project Red, and G-Shock, among others for his labels Daves Quality Meat, DQM, Dave’s Wearhouse, and Another Whip. Influenced by his Hispanic heritage, Classical sculpture and Impressionistic works he viewed growing up in New York City museums, Ortiz found himself developing a visual shorthand that unites the dramatically opposed worlds of street art and fine art. His figurative work is equally influenced by Matisse as cartoon imagery--where the attention-grabbing colors and heavy outlining typically associated to graffiti writing is combined with references to Greek antiquity in the missing limbs or broken bodies of his characters. The mix of mediums crosses boundaries as well, with the artist employing traditional acrylic painting alongside spray paint and the paint markers often associated with quick tagging in street art. The new addition of printing techniques to his visual means of expression has opened new doors and opportunities the artist is happy to apply to the roster of skills. Ortiz’s work can be classified between figurative and abstract art, with a vibrant and spontaneous energy influenced by his everyday experience that pervades both surface and conscious meaning. Dave Ortiz lives and works in NYC.