A successful, full-time painter for the past 20 years, Nancy Ortensone absorbs the sights, sounds, and atmospheric wonders of the physical world with the fullest sensitivity and appreciation. Then in the tranquility of her studio near a small village in the mountains of northern New Mexico, she approaches her art as an alchemist approaches her raw materials. One dictionary definition of alchemy is "the transformation of something common into something special." It's a perfect summation of Nancy Ortenstone's creative output.

Today her paintings grace corporate and private collections around the world. In her mastery of pure abstraction. Ortenstone composes forms and colors into beautifully balanced and exquisitely nuanced organic wholes, complete in themselves, and worthy of contemplation for their aesthetics alone. An Ortenstone canvas is a rich starting point from which too conceptualize and furnish a phenomenal interior. The artist's motivation, on the other hand, is to appeal also to another kind of interior, the inner life of the perceptive, evolving soul.

Earlier in her career, Ortenstone interpreted the landscape and other abstractions like music and color in her own imagery, analyzing anddiscussing more intellectually in her work. Her painted essays on form and color were inspired by the ever-changing splendor of nature, music, dance and chroma. recently her inspiration comes more from intuition, that deep and bountiful well. (Taken from Focus Sante Fe/January 2006.)