art treatise
gesture and narrative
Sheila Keefe Ortiz’s honest and graceful body of work
FRIENDS AND FAMILY knew there was something unique about Sheila Keefe
Ortiz when she was growing up.
As she good-naturedly puts it, “I used to hear ‘You’re so spacey, you’re so
weird.’ I always thought it was an insult until I found people — other artists —
and felt like I belonged. I understood what they’d meant and I realized art is
where I was always meant to be.”
She hesitated at first. She wasn’t sure she could create exactly what she
envisioned, and from what she’d observed, artists were always completely self-assured. Her first
memory of considering “artist” as a profession came from watching her husband, Marcos, an
engineer, as he sketched for a project. He was so quick and confident and clearly enjoyed it, and
she remembers thinking, “That’s not for me, I could never do that.”
Now established as a successful artist, she doesn’t know why she waited.
“I’m surprised that I didn’t know I was an artist; I’m not sure why that was so mysterious
before,” she says. “Really, the fact that you just want to make art is enough.”
The Wilmington resident is an artist for whom every gesture and detail is important. Her
appreciation for the seeming effortlessness of her husband’s sketches pushes her to achieve a
similar appearance in her own work.
Though a substantial amount of forethought, practice and effort goes into her paintings, each
of them seems weightless and simply perfect. She never knows for certain if the piece will come
out to her satisfaction, but that has become a part of the process, too.
In her “Gesture” series, painted from 2007 to 2016, both the intentionality of her practice and
the influence of her education in gesture drawing are apparent.
The series includes works like “Pears at Attention” — a pared down, straightforwardly gestural
depiction in black ink wash on white paper — and pieces like “Celebrate” and “Petite Bouquet,”
which are full of color, movement and vivacious emotion.
“Celebrate” depicts a gifted bouquet, rendered in ink and watercolor on white paper. She
employs a color palette of bright reds and blues and brushstrokes that feel simultaneously wild
and contained.
The intensity lies in the tangle of line and shape that make up the central image. This potency
is enhanced by the contrast of the bold, saturated inks in darker shades and the pale, thin water-colors.
In these details, Keefe Ortiz conveys the dueling but often coexistent feelings of excite-ment,
affection and anxiety.
Azalea, 6 x 9 inches, watercolor on paper.
by Kathryn Manis
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