Gloria Ortiz-Hernández’s Plate/Shift #10 (2006, Graphite pencil, charcoal powder, and pigment on wove paper, 22″ x 22″) is currently on view at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. The piece is part of the museum’s permanent collection. Gift of Sally and Howard Lepow.
Notes from the museum: 
In 1998, Gloria Ortiz-Hernandez gave up the brightly colored figurative paintings that she had been doing for years and began drawing simple geometric forms. Like many of these drawings, Plate/Shift #10 belongs to a series in which the artist explores different combinations of a similar composition. Made of numerous layers of almost imperceptible strokes the subtle gradation from dark to light suggests volume and depth, and gives this deceptively simple composition a great tactile beauty. The drawing is typical of Ortiz-Hernandez’s work in its fusion of a minimalist aesthetic with an exquisite sense of refinement.
es’ precisely organized colors and textures create a prevailing mood of a restful oasis. The sumptuous dilapidation of the gallery walls and fixtures enhance this mood. On a recent trip to Washington D.C. surrounded by historic monuments and nature I felt the same sense of peace and contemplation. These paintings provide the mental space to think, contemplate, and consider. The rigidly organized lines and colors force the consciousness inward or similarly condense the surrounding space and architecture onto a single plane. As such the paintings are correspondingly simple and complex.
The collision and/or communion between repetition and randomness in the visual world is a perpetual source of interest for me. Just as what is regarded as “standard” I think of as being too formally familiar. Dichotomy and conflict create inventive dialectic. There is in this world a ubiquitous visual paradox which is a constant source of creative potential. As Oscar Wilde accurately put it: “The true mystery of the world is the VISIBLE not the INVISIBLE”. I wish to go there for a language. – Gordon Moore