“I picked up drawing at a young age, curious about my surroundings I recorded everything I saw and without knowing I began to catalog the wonders of my life on paper. Once again, I tested the limits of my craft; the pencil tuned into a brush, the brush turned into a chisel, and the chisel turned into a mouse and keyboard. I discovered a way to bring life to my concepts and ideas beyond that of pencil and paper, beyond the physical world; a medium I learned to love through three-dimensional design and animation. My work is bound to the constant exploration of technology shaped by symbolism which is rendered through stylized three-dimensional environments and character design. I feel captivated by the way sketching, modeling, texturing, coloring, and audio blend together to create a narrative in the digital world. I use technology to compose, design, and animate the limits of my imagination, a vast medium with endless tools to explore.”
Erick Ortiz
New Media artist; he works on developing concept art for multiple mediums including both digital and physical, primarily focused on character design. He was born in a remote town on the south side of Mexico called Salitral de Carrera Villa de Ramos. He is a senior at the University of North Texas and is expected to graduate in the spring of 2024 with a B.A. in New Media art, a life choice that shaped his work. He acquired a taste for art at a young age, drawing anything that he observed down to its minute detail in which he discovered a talent for the craft. He studied computer programming each summer at the University of North Texas sponsored by UNTUBMS under the mentorship of graduate experts in the field since 2016. In 2017 he obtained an apprenticeship at the Tiny Game Build Studio in Seattle Washington where he animated concept art for developing code and worked closely with expert developers; mentorship that transferred over to applications such as Maya, Unity, and Unreal Engine software. He developed a love for design while attending one of the summer sessions at UNTUBMS where he competed among other art students; he edited 3-D animations and environment design according to code input from a computer program which earned him first place at the 2019 college fair. Since that moment, he loved the process of the work along with the fulfillment it achieves to bring ideas to life. He exhibited his first interactive motion-sensing installation Hopeless Acceptance at the Dallas Contemporary Museum in 2022, an artwork based on the intricacies of artificial intelligence in today’s society. He works as a freelance concept artist, rendering design ideas along with 3-D models using Maya, Unity, and Unreal Engine for indie companies worldwide while studying. He currently lives in Decatur Texas.