Artists: Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón
Exhibition title: PORTALES & DESGASTES
Venue: Embajada, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Date: January 27 – March 16, 2024
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Embajada, San Juan
Embajada is pleased to announce a two-person exhibition, PORTALES & DESGASTES (portals & wear), by artists Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón. The exhibition reflects on ideas of erosion, materiality, and memory. Through painting and sculpture, Daniel and Ada’s works evoke portals suggesting transitions and conjuring an elasticity of time.
“Time is too large, it can’t be filled up. Everything you plunge into it is stretched and disintegrates.” -Jean-Paul Sartre
Ada del Pilar Ortiz’s practice investigates architectural conditions such as the meaning of home or the remnants of built space and its relationship with memory. In PORTALES & DESGASTES Ortiz presents a group of five large scale sculptures made of brass and latex created during a recent residency at Penland Art School in North Carolina. Inspired by the tropical baroque iron gates of Puerto Rico the works bend and twist conjuring the warping of memory from the passage of time. The sculptures hang as skeletons, suggesting traces of lived experience.
Daniel Pabón’s paintings investigate intersections between individual and collective memory through imagery found in family albums and archives. Worn or damaged photographs provide a rich source of historical reference and mark making. Accompanying the paintings are a series of newly-produced light boxes, made with found vintage cabinets originally for archival purposes discarded from an old library. These multimedia sculptural works act as time capsules transporting the viewer to a familiar past.
Artist and educator, Ada del Pilar Ortiz (b. 1995, Barranquitas, Puerto Rico), obtained her BFA in painting at the School of Fine Arts & Design of Puerto Rico in 2018. She has participated in several residencies including The Studios at MASS MoCA, Puerto Rican Artist Fellowship residency (2023), “La Práctica” at Beta Local, San Juan (2019), and Área: Lugar de Proyectos Residency Program, Caguas (2019). Her work has been exhibited at the Arsenal de la Puntilla Museum as part of the 2018 National Exhibition of the Arts dedicated to sculpture, and currently at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) of Puerto Rico in a group exhibition Puerto Rico Negrx co-curated by Marie Elena Ortiz and Marina Reyes Franco. Ada lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Daniel Pabón Velazquez (b. 1996, San Juan, Puerto Rico) obtained a bachelor’s degree with a concentration in painting at the School of Plastic Arts and Design of Puerto Rico in 2020 during which time he also attended the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore (2018) and participated in Independent Studies Program of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, San Juan (2019). Pabón Velazquez had his first solo exhibition with el Kilometro, San Juan (2023) and has been exhibiting locally in group exhibitions in San Juan. The artist lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón, PORTALES & DESGASTES, 2024, exhibition view, Embajada, San Juan
Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Distorsionado, 2024, Latex and brass 42 x 37 x ½ inches
Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Distorsionado, 2024, Latex and brass 42 x 37 x ½ inches
Daniel Pabón, El Manglar, c. 1955, 2023, Oil and honey wax on canvas, 48 x 69 inches
Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón, PORTALES & DESGASTES, 2024, exhibition view, Embajada, San Juan
Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón, PORTALES & DESGASTES, 2024, exhibition view, Embajada, San Juan
Daniel Pabón, Bailable, Bayamon, c. 1962, 2023, Oil and honey wax on canvas, 48 x 60 inches
Daniel Pabon Velázquez, Los queremos mucho, Cabo Rojo, c. 1978, 2023, Oil and honey wax on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón, PORTALES & DESGASTES, 2024, exhibition view, Embajada, San Juan
Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón, PORTALES & DESGASTES, 2024, exhibition view, Embajada, San Juan
Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón, PORTALES & DESGASTES, 2024, exhibition view, Embajada, San Juan
Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Rendido, 2024, Latex and brass, 10 ½ x 105 x ½ inches
Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Rendido, 2024, Latex and brass, 10 ½ x 105 x ½ inches
Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Rendido, 2024, Latex and brass, 10 ½ x 105 x ½ inches
Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón, PORTALES & DESGASTES, 2024, exhibition view, Embajada, San Juan
Daniel Pabón, Bautismo, c. 1983, 2023, Oil and honey wax on canvas, 36 x 36 inches
Daniel Pabón, Procesion, Rio Piedras, c. 1960, 2023, Oil and honey wax on canvas, 22 x 20 inches
Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Vinculados, 2024, Latex and brass, 37 x 48 x ½ inches
Daniel Pabon Velázquez, Cumpleaños, Casa de Titi, c. 1977, 2023, Oil and honey wax on canvas, 35 x 35 inches
Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón, PORTALES & DESGASTES, 2024, exhibition view, Embajada, San Juan
Daniel Pabón, Capsular: Desbordando, Carolina, 2024, Oil and honey wax on canvas, 16 x 8 x 5 inches
Daniel Pabón, Capsular: Vigilancia, c. 1975, 2024, Oil and honey wax on canvas, 16 x 12 x 5 inches
Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón, PORTALES & DESGASTES, 2024, exhibition view, Embajada, San Juan
Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Desplazado, 2024, Latex and brass, 79 x 32 x ½ inches
Ada del Pilar Ortiz and Daniel Pabón, PORTALES & DESGASTES, 2024, exhibition view, Embajada, San Juan
Daniel Pabón, Capsular: Cena, c.1968, 2023, Oil and honey wax on canvas, 5 x 32 x 4 inches
Daniel Pabón, Capsular: Nave, 2021, Oil and honey wax on canvas, 34 x 24 x 13 inches