My work is a culmination of who I am, a constant search to share and learn from my ever evolving identity. It’s one I trace back to the beginning with my maternal grandparents, Juan Ortiz and Maria Consuelo Prado de Ortiz. They came from Jaya, a small town in the Dominican Republic. They had a beautiful cocoa farm with everything from chickens and cows to plantains. They had ten children; my mother was their fourth. She was a rosy cheeked little girl with an abundance of curls, curls that I inherited. I was born in Queens, New York, yet my fondest memories are all of spending time on this farm. I've had the privilege of traveling back and forth, submerging myself in both Dominican and American cultures. I’ve never conformed to one or the other, rather embracing both. Growing up in New York, which is a melting pot of people, to moving to middle America, where segregation is so prevalent, has brought to my attention the widespread lack of information and education about Latin America. This has contributed to my own understanding of my identity and how it is perceived in the United States.
I mostly focus on fibers/textile work and photography, using different techniques like heat press transfer, mono print, silk screen and embroidery. I use these techniques to create large scale prints on fabric. My prints are heavily layered with multiple images executed in combinations of these various processes. I source my imagery through photographs that I take or find in family albums from my travels together with ones that I have researched. My prints explore identity and diversity while connecting land and nature to the body. The majority of these images are of familiar things in nature, like flowers and animals. I use nature as a motif for humans, in particular Latinos.