Layers of Meaning

The beauty of Hortensia's art springs from a desire to see the world objectively. She reaches beyond the outward appearance of nature, the bright but deceptive picture presented by the kaleidoscope of the subjective senses, and penetrates to the reality that does not change and that lies beneath the shimmering and ambiguous surface of things.
Nature is one thing, art is another and its aim is to create something monumental and enduring.
In this respect her temperament is fundamentally classical. She is for structure at all costs, a style which looks back at Cezanne and seeks to achieve an order of art corresponding to the order of nature, independent of the 'confused sensations we bring with us at birth' yet losing none of the visual intensity of the chosen motive.
Her drawings of landscapes along the Algarvean coastline and the townscapes of the lower Alentejo region of southern Portugal explore the underlying rhythms, elemental tensions, and relationships of form and space in locations where rocks, cliffs, sand and earth converge with sea and air, or where urban towers and architectural monuments define topographical space.
These locations are imaginative 'living points' that enfold the hidden layers of meaning which inspire her creative vision.
Her work expresses not only a profound aesthetic sensibility and the understanding of the laws governing the nature of things. It is also an affirmation of a personal philosophy which seeks to create a true unity of the human spirit and the world we live in.

Roger Green, Algarve, Portugal 1998.