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, in addition to other artworks. Ortiz-Rubio’s painting will occupy an entire wall in the Museum’s Dutch/Flemish Gallery and be on display from early June through September 29. Ortiz-Rubio is scheduled to be on site at the Timken, June 5-26, 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.
In addition to In Blue Time, Ortiz-Rubio also has exciting plans for the Timken’s temporary Exhibition Gallery. Another part of her project will be a recent large-scale drawing which was the result of a collaborative project with the musical composer Stefan Cwik and inspired by the concept of time, thereby connecting with the summer’s In Blue Time theme. Finally, during her residence in the Museum, she will investigate other landscapes utilizing atmospheric perspective to represent distance. Her small studies of mixed media on paper will demonstrate her creative process.
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 idea conceptually through the neurological processes of remembering and forgetting as well as through poetical and philosophical approaches. One of her sources of research is A Field Guide to Getting Lost by American writer Rebecca Solnit, where she 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 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.”
Summer Installation: In Blue Time
Artist-in-Residence: Tatiana Ortiz-Rubio
Inspired by Pieter Brueghel’s Parable of the Sower, 1557 -Part of the Timken Permanent Collection
Artist Residency: June 5 – 28, 2024 – On View: July 17-September 29, 2024
Timken Museum of Art – Balboa Park
1500 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101
619.239.5548 – www.timkenmuseum.org
