Interview with Britta Ortiz
How did your early artistic influences, especially your visual arts teacher in fifth grade and your high school mentor, shape your approach to art and creativity?
My mother painted and drew when I was a child. My parents also encouraged my older sister, who is five years older than me, to do the same. Year after year, oil and watercolor paints were on my wish list for Christmas and birthdays. However, I never received any of the items as a gift. I was also not allowed to use my mother's oil paints. I never found out why. It has therefore been decisive for me that I met some teachers in primary and secondary school who saw that I longed to express myself artistically and supported it. The two of them led me into the world of art and gave me the belief that I had some talent in that field.
Reflecting on your decision not to attend art academy and instead pursue a career in medicine and health anthropology, how do these diverse academic experiences influence your artistic work?
Today, I do not regret that I was not allowed to go to the art academy, because my studies have given me a lot of experiences and an insight into people and people's lives, which I would not have had if I had gone to the art academy.
When you are a doctor in Denmark, you meet people from all social strata in society and in situations where they are most vulnerable. It helps to shape you as a person and your view of the society in which we live.
Furthermore, I have not followed the traditional path in my profession. This has meant that I have tried so many things and met completely different types of people with a completely different educational background than mine and dealt with completely different things than most doctors do. If I had followed the traditional path of doctors, I would never have studied either psychology or health anthropology. For me, it has been very fruitful to take the two educations, because it has given me a different perspective on my medical education. At the same time it has given me an insight into human psychology and the humanities.
All these things influence my art because they have shaped me as a person and my view of the world. I don't know what my art would have looked like if I had gone to art school, but I do know that my background influences my view of the world and what it is that I try to express with my art.
As I transitioned from being a traditional doctor, I experienced how much medical school had affected me from the day I entered university. I therefore had a few years where I sort of had to find my way back to who I really was before I started studying medicine. I had lost some of my creativity during my work as a doctor.
I can imagine that the same thing would have happened if I had gone to the art academy.
You've mentioned the importance of using both halves of your brain to function optimally. Can you elaborate on how this balance between your medical career and artistic endeavors has impacted your life and art?
When I started medical school at the age of 19, I experienced for the first time that, for the first time in my life, art was not part of my everyday life. It left me with a great longing and I became restless. My inner balance was restored when I found what it took to make me happy, namely art.
Conversely, my brain also hungers to be challenged all the time. I love learning new things. Immerse myself in professional issues and use my bookish skills to see things in a new perspective and take new paths - work creatively with my professional knowledge. I have been allowed to do that for many years, as I have been at the head of many different development projects within prevention and health.
I love working in my professional field, and I love making art, where I also constantly try to challenge myself by learning new things and refining the techniques I work with.
At the same time, my work within my profession gives me the freedom to constantly develop myself within art, as I am not financially dependent on my art. I produce art for my own sake and I don't have to think about whether my art can be sold or not. Therefore, I have the opportunity to express all possible feelings, thoughts and attitudes in my art without having to think about whether my art will offend others or not.
Since your first exhibition in 2010, how has your art evolved, and what challenges have you faced in breaking into the art world, especially coming from a very different background?
It is with wonder that I have moved into the world of art. Everything is so different from where I come from.
Even after I am represented in several art books and magazines and have participated in censored exhibitions in Denmark and have exhibited both in Denmark and in the USA, London, several cities in Italy, in Vienna and Munich, I am unsure if I as an artist deserves it - whether I'm skilled enough or whether it's because I've been willing to pay.
I get a lot of inquiries about whether I want to take part in exhibitions or be represented in all sorts of art books and magazines, and I'm now trying to shut it down a bit because it stresses me out. Partly there are many deadlines to deal with, but also because I don't know if it's because I'm skilled enough as an artist or if it's because I can pay for things. Therefore, I try to stick to why I work with art. It's not to become famous, but for my own sake. Because it is there where I can be completely myself and where I can express my thoughts, feelings, etc. Today, therefore, I only say yes to selected things. In addition, I concentrate on the close things within the world of art. This includes, among other things, the fact that I have been the initiator of forming an artists' association, where we have a community around art and organize exhibitions together. In addition, I help an elderly woman who has a gallery. She is an artist herself, but also has a gallery. Her boyfriend died in March 2023 and I help her with the gallery's website as well as posts on Facebook because she is not very technical herself.
Your art is described as focusing on general human conditions rather than direct political messages. Can you discuss how you choose the themes for your artwork and what inspires you to focus on these existential conditions?
While I was studying psychology, it dawned on me that throughout my life I live existentially. There have been many ups and downs in my life, but I have learned that all crises make me stronger and richer as a person. In all crises, no matter how deep, there is learning. At the same time, the crises mean that good experiences appear even better, and that I value life enormously.
My work as a doctor has shown me how short the distance between life and death is, and therefore I appreciate every day I live even more than if I did not live with this awareness. Life is not something we can take for granted.
As I mentioned earlier, as a doctor in Denmark you meet people from all social strata and all types of people. However, they all have one thing in common, namely that they are people with thoughts, feelings, vulnerability and strength.
All my experiences throughout life - both privately and in my work leave their mark in my art. However, it is not only my own experiences that inspire me. This is what nature does, the event both in Denmark and abroad as well. Often it is my reflections on the things I experience that are expressed through my art. I got e.g. once tasked with producing a work inspired by the title "An Uncertain World". It was right after the COVID-19 pandemic and after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. These were two major events that made our world more uncertain, and it would have been obvious to depict one of the two things. However, the title made me reflect on the fact that we people in Denmark have been privileged for many years. We live in a country without major natural disasters, without war and major accidents. This is different from the animals, who constantly live in a safe world, where dangers and death constantly threaten. My work therefore came to depict some chickens and some foxes to depict that life is fragile and that danger is always lurking somewhere. This applies to both animals and humans. We humans are often just not aware of it.
You have expressed admiration for Vincent van Gogh and Edward Munch. How have these artists influenced your style and approach to art, particularly in your use of color and expression of emotion?
When I was 12-13 years old, I saw for the first time a photo of Edward Munch's painting "The Scream". It was in black and white, but it still made a huge impression on me. It was so hugely expressive and I could almost feel this scream.
At school I got approx. 14-year-old a history assignment. We had to choose to write a larger assignment on a topic that was in our history book. I found a small photo of Vincent van Gogh. I therefore asked my teacher if we could also write an assignment based on a photo, and he said yes. I therefore wrote the assignment about van Gogh. It was before the computer era. My report was long and I spent many hours copying van Gogh's paintings and drawings into the report. It was done by hand, which means I hand drew and hand painted pictures and drawings.
In connection with the preparation of the report, I read several books about van Gogh and also read all the letters that Vincent and his brother Theodor wrote to each other. Vincent's description of how he used the colors made a strong impression on me, as he e.g. wrote that if something e.g. was yellow, he used a very strong yellow to enhance the effect.
Edward Munch's way of simplifying motifs and Vincent van Gogh's use of colors have meant that I have never been afraid to use colors nor to simplify motifs, as both can mean that motifs and messages appear more clearly.
Vincent van Gogh's way of drawing has also influenced me. It was probably here that I really found out how strong a motif can appear with just two colors, namely black and white.
Can you describe your creative process in more detail, particularly how it differs when you work with graphics, paintings, and clay?
There are very different processes behind the production of graphic works such as linocut compared to making paintings and ceramics. The biggest difference is that no cut can be changed in a linocut, apart from the fact that I can of course cut away even more. This is in contrast to painting, where things can be painted over, and things can also always be changed in ceramic works. Therefore, there is a lot of preparatory work behind it before I start cutting when I make linocuts. I draw sketches. Often my works consist of several different smaller sketches that I compose into a larger work. If it is a multi-color print, I have to decide whether it should be a work where each color is printed via a separate plate or whether it should be a reduction print where more and more is removed as the individual colors are printed. It can also be a combination of the two things. Once this has been done, the work must be transferred to the linoleum sheet in a mirror image so that the work can be produced correctly. It requires a lot of planning work if it is to succeed. When I start cutting, I must of course always consider which knife I want to use for the individual cut and how the individual cut should be performed, as this will also influence the expression in the finished lino print.
When I paint, the manufacturing process takes place on the canvas. I always sketch the motif directly on the canvas. I often work with inspiration from photos I have taken. I also do this when I make linocuts. I use photos, as for me the photo helps to retain experiences and impressions, but also for e.g. to retain and study what an insect, animal or plant actually looks like. I'm not trying to make a copy of a photo. In my pictures, I produce my experience of the things I want to portray. I spend a lot of time communicating with my paintings. It may sound strange, but the painting tells me along the way where it wants to go. I can tell when something isn't working and then I have to figure out what needs to be changed to make it work. I always paint with oil paint. Partly because I like the texture of oil paint, but also because oil paint forces you to stop and look.
When I work with clay, I usually have an idea in my head before I start, but I often end up in a completely different place, because during the process I get new ideas that I pursue. I love the possibilities of clay. So far I have been working with modelling. I am now learning to use a potter's wheel and make things in clay that way, and here I will combine the possibilities of clay by also using these things made in clay as a background for motifs that I paint on the manufactured objects. Where it will take me, I don't know, but the process is exciting and it's a new challenge I've taken on.
Your art practice seems deeply personal and introspective. How do you maintain your authenticity and resist commercial pressures in the art world?
Even as a newly qualified doctor, I learned to focus on what I am doing in the present. I worked at one of Denmark's largest hospitals and worked a lot in the emergency department. It was very busy and there were always many patients waiting for treatment. That situation can stress many people, but I discovered that if I concentrated on the individual patient, it gave a good experience for both the individual patient and myself. I have transferred that ability to the rest of my working life and to my art. At the same time, I am good at noticing in myself what it is that I need here and now.
When it comes to the specific question of how I resist the commercial pressure, this means that I keep the focus on the art and leave the commercial part only on the periphery. I do not pursue every exhibition opportunity or every opportunity to be seen. I participate e.g. not at large art fairs because I can't see myself spending several days where I have to be present several days in a row at an art fair. I once signed up for one, but ended up canceling as I could tell as the time for the art fair approached that it would be something that would stress me out. On the other hand, I like to participate in exhibitions that I myself help to organize together with my artists' association, because here I am part of a community, and it is not me who is being promoted, but our exhibitions. I know that I am privileged, that I can have that attitude and behavior, and that it is only possible because I don't have to make a living from my art.
You live in a country estate surrounded by nature, which you describe as a source of inspiration. How does this environment influence your artistic vision and the themes you explore in your work?
Life in the countryside and life together with many different animals has taught me that man often underestimates animals. Man believes that he is superior to all other beings on earth. It is also human from a human perspective. However, humans also have some very boring qualities. We start wars and I know of no other beings who similarly invent ways ttorture others within their own species. My interest in animals therefore makes me reflect on who we as humans are, and those thoughts put things in a different perspective than I would otherwise have been able to.
At the same time, nature is where I find calm and energy after a busy working day. Nature is constantly changing and wonderful. I live with the changing seasons and weather, and it never gets gray and boring. I can be amazed more than anyone by the different shades of green when the trees spring out in the spring. I can see the beauty in large amounts of snow, even though the snow also makes many things difficult. I can feel and hear the wind shaking the trees. Nature shows us that we humans are small. I try to convey all these experiences through my art.
You believe that artists play a crucial role in society by questioning and influencing societal changes. Can you share your thoughts on the responsibility of artists in today's world and how you see your own role in this context?
Art can have several different functions. Partly, through their art, artists can express feelings, moods and attitudes in a way that makes people reflect on the things that happen in society, in a completely different way than what is shown in various news media. At the same time, art helps to document what is happening in our time, so that posterity can get an impression of it. Just think of Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica. When you look at that painting, there is no doubt about the horrors of war. A work of art affects people in a completely different way than if you read thick books about it, because works of art affect us through our senses.
During the Second World War, there were several poets in Denmark who, through their poems, rebelled against the German occupying power without the Germans being able to directly discover what the poems were about.
Politicians often make decisions that are focused on one thing and are unable to see what consequences each decision has for many other things - both nature, animals and people. In addition, politicians often make very short-term decisions that have consequences for people and animals many decades into the future. This applies, for example, when decisions are made to "fix" the climate, but e.g. also in relation to wars and AI.
I am a very reflective person. The thoughts and feelings that go through my head influence what I portray through my art. Often it is in the creation of a work that I discover what it is that I really want to say with the work. If I e.g. have seen man-made deserts full of solar panels, I feel like depicting the amazing nature that surrounds me. When I depict the young girl with a mobile phone in her hand, there is more to it than just what the eye sees. It should show how children "disappear" into a screen instead of playing and using their bodies and imagination. We do not know the consequences of this, but something may indicate that it may contribute to increasing the dissatisfaction of young people.
I hope that my art can help make people reflect on the society and the world we live in.
