Denver Latino Artist Tony Ortega’s Artistic Journey
Tony Ortega, “Tacos El Bucanero.” Courtesy of the artist.
Tony Ortega, an eminent Denver artist, has been painting for over forty years and teaching art for two decades. His creative work has been in hundreds of exhibits and permanently collected by prominent museums including the Denver Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the University of Texas Blanton Museum in Austin. Throughout his career he has been a bright star as a painter and print maker of Latino themes related to immigration, justice, and social equality.
Tony Ortega, “Te Quiero Hablar.” Courtesy of the artist.
Ortega was born in New Mexico but two weeks after birth, his mother took him to Denver to be raised by his maternal grandmother and great aunt. Growing up, he lived in two distinct worlds, that of a permanent home in urbanized Denver, Colorado, and his extended family’s home in Pecos, a small New Mexican town where he would spend his summers.
Tony Ortega, “Mexican Gothic.” Courtesy of the artist.
Artists are products of their environment and their creative development are often influenced by their experiences as well as by training, mentorship, inspiration, and timing. Ortega proudly credits his maternal grandmother Trinnie Ortega, a seamstress who helped raise him, for providing him with an appreciation of cultural arts. Ortega told me, “My grandmother was a storyteller, seamstress, and quilt maker. When I was very little, I spent a great deal of time under the sewing machine or in the living room while she sewed, embroidered, or crocheted. She also shared many stories about her youth, my mother and uncles’ childhood and the folktales of the southwest and New Mexico.” In addition, he observed carpentry and the art of making wood cabinets from his uncle Manuel. At age thirteen, Ortega worked after school for an artist, often helping him with yard work and eventually in his studio packing crates of art they shipped to galleries in Santa Fe and Taos. Thus began the young Latino’s first encounter with the world of art.
Tony Ortega at work on a mural project. Courtesy of the artist.
Ortega is also a product of the Chicano Movement generation that swept through the Southwest in the mid 1960s to the late 1970s. As a college student, he was a member of UMAS [United Mexican American Students]. In conversations and interviews, Ortega often describes himself as a Chicano or Mexican. There are vast cultural differences in identity and references to ethnicity among Latinos living in Denver and Santa Fe. Denver has a thriving Chicano community. Most Northern New Mexicans seldom identify as Chicano or Mexican with a preference for the terms Hispano or Hispanic. A Denver New Mexican by birth, artist Ortega was born in a region also rich in Native American and Spanish colonial history.
Tony Ortega, “Bonampak Cholo.” Courtesy of the artist.
While the New Mexicans are proud of their historical roots noting that their ancestors were the first Europeans to settle the United States, any discussion of early New Mexico history requires recognition that the Pueblo Natives were the earliest settlers of the region. Ortega’s birth place is home to some of the oldest continuously inhabited Native American villages in the United States. These ancient settlements, known as pueblos, have been occupied for centuries and remain vibrant centers of Native culture and tradition. Acoma Pueblo is widely recognized as one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America. The Acoma people have lived in this area located sixty miles from Albuquerque for over 2,000 years, with the mesa-top village itself established by at least the 11th century.
Tony Ortega, “El Danzante Mexica con Tambor.” Courtesy of the artist.
New Mexicans have long been engaged in making art. Before the Spaniards arrived in the 1590s, the Pueblo Natives made art with natural materials, clay, and wood. The Spaniards introduced iron and steel, as well as oils for painting, and sharp knives and saws for working with wood. I love New Mexico and have a personal interest in the state. My ancestors settled there in 1598 after leaving the mining community of Zacatecas, Mexico in search of new mines in the northern region they would call Nuevo Mexico. My tenth generation ancestors arrived with the first explorers and colonizers of the land. Although they never found the cities of gold, they established towns along the Rio Grande that have names like Espanola and Santa Fe. After centuries of fierce fighting and conflict, these Hispanos or Nuevo Mexicanos learned to live with the Pueblo Natives.
Ortega’s ancestors lived in Pecos, New Mexico, thirty-five miles east of Santa Fe. His formal training in art started in 1980 with his enrollment at the Rocky Mountain School of Art. Following his graduation in 1982, Ortega opened a storefront gallery and studio in Denver. Initially he also worked as a waiter, but in 1984 a major art break came when he signed up with the art agency of William Havu in Denver. In an interview with Voyage Denver News, Ortega expanded on his life as an artist: “I live between the clash of two cultures–one Mexican and one American. By merging Mexican and American iconography in my art, I show that my journey is not unique. I make art that merges abstraction and realism.”
Tony Ortega, “Al Norte a la Fiesta.” Courtesy of the artist.
After working as an artist for over a decade, Ortega enrolled in the art program at the University of Colorado earning a Master in Fine Arts degree in 1995. In any extended conversation with Ortega, the artist brings up family, community, and regionalism. Ortega’s most popular artworks fall into mainly three categories. First, the Denver artist draws on the ancient icons of the Olmec, Mayan and Aztec cultures. His painting El Mexica con tambor is a prime example of his passion for pre-Columbian icons. In this painting Ortega placed an Aztec dancer figure in the center beating a small drum with smaller figures like a Posada skeleton, an Aztec Chihuahua dog, and the Virgin de
Guadalupe superimposed on the Statue of Liberty to complete the imagery.
Second, Ortega has a preference for painting his community with Latino figures engaged in everyday activities. In his painting Al Norte a la Fiesta the artist portrays a popular corner on Federal Street in Denver where the “La Fiesta Flowers and Pinata” store is located. An older two-story red building dominates the center of the artwork. Next to the red building, Ortega includes an ice cream vendor with a pushcart. In the front section of the painting, a pair of young teens ride bikes and a red lowrider car waits for a green light. As in all of his paintings, Ortega includes Brown figures who appear anonymous, their faces with no specific details.
Tony Ortega, “La Marcha de Lupe Liberty.” Art on the cover of Harriett Romo edited book. Universidad Veracruzana Press, 2012 Photo by Ricardo Romo.
Third, the artist portrays a smaller segment of life in a Latino community where friendships are important. In a painting Hombres Iluminados Ortega shows two friends engaged in conversation over beers. One gentleman wears a baseball hat similar to that of many blue-collar workers. Perhaps it is a routine gathering after work when friends meet up at the neighborhood bar to share work experiences or catch up on family events. Ortega demonstrates his respect for common workers by using the title “Iluminados,” a term usually reserved for the professional or literary class.
Tony Ortega is an outstanding artist Harriett and I have known for over twenty years. We visited with Tony when he conducted printmaking demonstrations at the Denver Museum of Art several years ago. In addition, Harriett used his stunning image of the Virgin de Guadalupe superimposed on the Statue of Liberty for her 2012 publication, A Bilateral Perspective on Mexico-U.S. Migration. Tony is a passionate promoter of the arts and gives generously of his time and material to youths and emerging artists. He is currently a Full Professor of Painting at Regis University in Denver, Colorado. He has received several prestigious awards including the Colorado Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. For more information on his art please visit his website www.tonyortega.net.
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Copyright 2025 b Ricardo Romo. All image credits as indicated.