Layers Collection

The Layers collection investigates accumulation as a material and perceptual process. Built through successive applications of paint, the works emphasize surface development over time, allowing form to emerge through gradual layering rather than compositional planning. Each painting records a sequence of decisions, revisions, and material responses, foregrounding process as an active component of visual experience.

Montoya’s approach privileges attentiveness to material behavior, with layers functioning as both physical strata and temporal markers. Variations in opacity, density, and texture create subtle spatial shifts that resist fixed readings, encouraging sustained viewing and perceptual adjustment. Rather than resolving into singular images, the paintings retain traces of their making, maintaining a tension between accumulation and erasure.

Situated alongside Montoya’s academic research practice at the University of California, San Diego — where empirical methods and iterative experimentation are central — the Layers collection reflects a parallel commitment to process-driven inquiry. While not illustrative of scientific research, the work engages similar principles of iteration, constraint, and observation, positioning abstraction as a means of examining how material systems evolve through time.