Renzo Ortega (Lima, Perú 1974) emigrated to the United States in 2000, lived in New
York for 16 years, and in 2016 relocated to Carrboro, North Carolina. He received a BFA from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes del Perú, studied at the Art Students League of New York, and has his MFA in painting from Hunter College. His recent solo exhibitions have been at Craven Allen Gallery in Durham, North Carolina (2024), TW-Fine Art in Palm Beach (2022), LUMP Gallery in Raleigh, North Carolina (2021), Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia (2019), and The Power Plant Gallery at Duke University (2019). Renzo's artwork has been on view at the NASHER Museum of Art, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art SECCA, The Weatherspoon Art Museum in North Carolina, the S- Files Biennial at El Museo del Barrio and the Queens International Biennial at the Queens Museum in New York. He is a recipient of the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant, the North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship Award, the Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artists Grant Durham Arts Council, the Orange County Arts Commission Artist Project Grant, and the Queens Council on the Arts New Work Award. In 2013, as a Kossak Travel Grant recipient, Renzo traveled to Berlin to study German Expressionism. In 2015, he traveled to Honduras as a part of the U.S. Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Envoy Program. Renzo partook in the Visiting Artist Residency at the Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University in 2019. In 2020, he was the inaugural artist of the New Wave Art Wknd artist-in-residence program in West Palm Beach.
And have been commissioned to create public art projects and community murals. Renzo has been a Visiting Lecturer at UNC Chapel Hill and a Brock Family Visiting Studio Arts Instructor at Duke University, teaching painting and drawing. In December 2024, Renzo will have a survey exhibition of his New York works 2000-2003 at Artspace in Raleigh.