Guadalajara-based, hyper-realistic painter Omar Ortiz brings a different perspective to painting the female form. Typically, the male artistic gaze is focused on female breasts and erotic zones of the lower torso. Ortiz is hardly oblivious to eroticism in the grand spectrum of his paintings, but his visual gift lies in exploring the sensual totality of the female body including hands and even fingernails. See Omar Ortiz Facebook.

It occurs to me that Ortiz’s art is a positive force in the self-image fight that the majority of women experience in their quest to be perceived as more than the summation of their erotic body parts. Yes, his models are thin and beautiful, but these paintings remind us that female beauty is nuanced and can be expressed in gestures as well as knees and knuckles.