While best known for his sculpture, Ortega’s work also includes multimedia installation, photography, and video. The artist engages themes of materiality and form, function and obsolescence, myriad forces that shape our contemporary industrial environment. The artist often literally deconstructs commercial products to reveal their constituent parts or constructs simple forms in technically complicated ways. In these deconstructed objects, Ortega reveals the hidden mechanics and possibilities in everyday objects while framing their social connotations.

His recent solo exhibitions include Jornada Laboral, kurimanzutto, Mexico City, Mexico (2021); Estridentópolis, Adrian Rosenfeld Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2019); Porous Structures, Gladstone Gallery, New York, USA (2019); The Modern Garage, Garage Museum, Moscow, Russia (2018) e Play TIme, White Cube Gallery, London, UK (2017). The artist has also participated in they group exhibitions El tiempo en las cosas, Salas de Arte Contemporáneo, Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico (2021); Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2020); Visiones de la Tierra/El mundo planeado. Colección Luis Paulo Montenegro, Santander Cultural, Madrid, Spain (2018); Art and Space, Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao, Espanha (2017) and 14th Bienalle de Lyon: Floating Worlds, Lyon, France (2017). 

Damián Ortega has works in important public collections, including Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; CIFO – Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, USA; Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, USA; Instituto Inhotim, Minas Gerais, Brazil; MOCA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA; MoMA – The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA.