About


Brief biographical statement

Humberto Ortega-Villaseñor is a professional painter born in Mexico City. He has been painting since he was five years old, when his father taught him how to work with watercolor. In the first decades of his life he leaned on the figurative: drew human bodies in a genuine effort to place human nature as axis or center of most of the answers he sought.

As he grew and developed his own language, he became increasingly interested in other aspects of plastic work such as texture and color, going on to work with oil, gouache and collage on different supports. In the long run, the technical enrichment would lead him to open spaces towards less figurative preferences and to experiment with new materials, discovering, for example, that “the intensity of the tones could acquire a specific meaning when it was related to particular degrees of tonalities, certain lines, composition and proportions present in each visual proposal ”.

Humberto would eventually carried out “search trips”, visiting many archaeological sites in Mexico. It was there where he could devote time to contemplate and corroborate the terrible gap that separated emptiness of modern Western life and the heavy burden of wisdom and learning to unveil these pre-Columbian sites. “I was so moved by those magic sites that I could never get rid of those first impressions. They were like voices and chromatic intensities that compromised my soul in some way.” From these experiences, Humberto began to infuse his work with a new language of symbols, and he would learn the technique of preparing amate paper from the bark of trees to create atmospheres and dense textures that would characterize his work ever since.

Humberto has exhibited his work in numerous solo exhibitions (mainly Mexico, New York and Europe). He continues exploring new horizons and expressive possibilities to provide a deeper significance to his activity. He notes, “I recognize that the process as an ‘art seeker’ is not easy one. It is a great responsibility to attempt to become a true artist, as one must have an innate disposition to constant dialogue with oneself, with one’s own heart and with the Totality. I believe that my humble advances on such plane are part of an awakening that is taking place collectively in deep levels of consciousness.

It should finally be added that Humberto is also a professor and researcher at the University of Guadalajara with a doctorate from UNAM (Mexico). For that reason, he gives classes, lectures and studies the links between visual and literary creativity. He has several books and articles published in fields mainly related to art, culture and communication.

Nowadays, the painter resides in Guadalajara, Jalisco and Mexico City with his wife Milagros and their children.