Please join us in welcoming Anna Ortiz, 2025-2026 McMillan/Stewart Endowed Chair of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art. Anna Ortiz will give a lecture this Monday, September 8 at 12:00pm in Falvey Hall on MICA campus. Anna Ortiz is a Mexican-American painter living in Brooklyn. Growing up in Worcester Massachusetts, Ortiz spent much of her childhood visiting her family in Guadalajara Mexico. There she studied art with her grandfather Alfonso who was a professional portrait painter as well as with her aunt Lolita, a professional sculptor. Ortiz’s surrealist landscapes reference the cultural divide she and so many second generation Americans feel. Their narrative nature references ancient Aztec and Mayan mythology while reflecting back on current and personal events. Out of the ruins of their previous existence, these new creatures inhabit a borderland between memory and imagination. Dualities define them; they give them shape. Weaving together invented spaces with references to actual places, the paintings take both a familiar tone and a sense of the uncanny. Ortiz is a recipient of the 2024 NYFA Artist Fellowship. Ortiz has had solo exhibitions with Mindy Solomon Gallery, Deanna Evans Projects and Dinner Gallery. She has shown her work with 1969 Gallery, Johansson Projects and Monya Rowe. She has also exhibited internationally, at the CAN art fair in Ibiza, in Mexico City with MAIA and in London with Soho Revue. Her work has been featured in Art Forum, Maake Magazine and Colossal. She has been the recipient of various residencies including CAA in Mallorca, The Golden Foundation and the Vermont Studio Center.