Limitada (Limited)

Mari Nalte Orensanz was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 1936. She added the letter e to her first name in 1972, when a gallery owner (who assumed she was a man) visited her studio and, after admiring her art, proceeded to tell her that the fact that she was a woman was detrimental to her work. This incident marked her awareness of gender bias in the art world. In the 1970s, her first forays into geometry, mathematics, and philosophy, developed into conceptual investigations. In 1975 she settled with her family in Paris and began developing the theory of fragmentism—intimately tied to her work with pieces of white marble. Her rigorous investigation of thought and matter marks Orensanz’s prolific oeuvre.