Luis Montoya and Leslie Ortiz

Art Brokerage: Sculptors Luis Montoya and Leslie Ortiz specialize in creating monumental versions of fruit, vegetables, shells, and mollusks cast in bronze. Luis Montoya and Leslie Ortiz have formed an artistic partnership for the past 15 years. Together they explore everyday items, mostly found in nature such as plants, sea life. Allying artistic traditions of Dutch 17th century still life, 20th century pop-up art and a delicate sense of humor, they offer us surrealistic bronzes that recreate the subject on a hyperbolized scale, meanwhile crafted with intense attention to detail, form and color. "By changing the scale and slightly exaggerating the form we hope that we have helped the casual viewer to look differently at an object as mundane as the common apple and see how truly sublime it really is." Leslie Ortiz (born 1957) studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, Netherlands, then later at Boston University, School for the Arts, Massachusetts, where she gratuated BFA Magna Cum Laude in sculpture. Luis Montoya (born 1950) followed his art studies at the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid, Spain, BFA, MFA; later went to the Castellblach Foundation, Independent Study in Florence, London, New York; and finally completed Post-graduate studies in sculpture at Kent State University, Ohio. Listings wanted.