Mixed Media

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The mixed media collage paintings are actually Kortez’ favorite medium to work in. He loves pulling together and creating with printed material (vintage magazines, his own photography). Items like old mail, eviction notices, letters, clothing, pieces of furniture, mix tapes and even animal and human remains have found themselves in some of his compositions. One of the reasons Kortez has ventured into doing abstract art was to create a lane for himself that was more about a simple flow of color texture and to just make something he considers beautiful and unique. There is a special kind of pressure Black artists have and the root of it is the social structure we live in and it’s not something we just experience in America.

The artist states,“For Artists of the African Diaspora, there is sometimes this unwritten expectation to create art that speaks on the Black experience. Sometimes I feel a need to step back and just create for the sake of creating. There are days I just want to be just an artist. My being a Black artist or an artist of the Global Majority is a given and that I will never turn my back on. But we never refer to Picasso, Warhol or Rauschenberg as the WHITE artists. Again this isn’t a desire to run away from my heritage. This is just my desire to create art that at times doesn’t have the social structure in mind. Even in my exploration to not create dialog about so called race, my art will be unapologetically BLACK. That is because its coming from me, I am a Black man in AMERICA. There is simply no running away from that even when I’m not trying to create a message addressing the social structure. That is the ironic thing about being an Black artist in America and abroad. No matter how much U try, there is no way to extract your soul form your art.”

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These creations he sometimes likes to call “VISUAL SAMPLES”. Very much like how modern music is created (Hip Hop and EDM/HOUSE), Kortez gathers visual elements and combines them to create unique images on canvas, found objects and at times sculptures and masks. The fact that Kortez is a DJ plays a major role in how he creates his art and his subject matter. Music is often the inspiration and the sonic backdrop to his compositions. Kortez loves to get creative with the dialog his composition stir up. Early in his career there was more of a need to create controversy. Now the goal is more about highlighting certain aspects of our society and at times not saying much. Change is a motivating factor but what he truly treasures is the ability to have a choice is whether or not he wants to create social commentary.

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The art posted on this page is a mixture of old work and his latest creations. Please note, the selection you see doesn’t represent all of his inventory. On platforms such as Facebook ,Twitter and Instagram, you can get a better idea of what he has been doing over the past several years.

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