Esperanza Cortés

Esperanza Cortés is a Colombian born multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Cortes’s passion for the mosaic of the Americas, its folk art traditions, rituals, music, dance and their ever evolving changes are at the core of her sculptures, paintings, installations, site-specific projects and interventions. Her artwork examines the extent to which a consciousness, national or personal, defines itself through the opposing force of a transcultural experience. The work is poetically and intricately crafted to encourage the viewer to reconsider social and historical narratives especially when dealing with Colonialism and raises critical questions about the politics of erasure and exclusion.

As a former Afro Latin dancer, her work seeks to underscore and use sacred space, the patterns of dance, music, and fragments of histories as departure points to investigate and build the structure and space of the installations.

Cortés has been exhibited nationally in galleries and museums including The Neuberger Museum of Art, Bronx Museum of Art, Queens Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, MoMA PS1, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Mexi-Arte Museum and The Cleveland Art Museum. Internationally, Cortes has also exhibited in Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Japan, Mexico, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Spain and Greece.

Cortés is a recipient of fellowships and grants including: 2018 BRIC Media Arts Fellowship: 2018 Museum of Arts and Design – Artist Studios Residency: 2017 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council – Creative Engagement Grant: 2014 Joan Mitchell Foundation – Painters & Sculptors Grant: and 2013 Puffin Foundation – Project Grant.

Residencies include: Caldera – Artist Residency Program: BRIC Workspace – Visual Artist-In-Residence Program: Joan Mitchell Center Residency: Sculpture Space: Webb School of Knoxville: The Fountainhead: Brooklyn Children’s Museum: Bronx Museum of Art – AIM Program: MoMA PS1 – International Studio Program: Bielska BWA Gallery, Poland: and Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic.

Cortés’s work is in private and public collections including the American Embassy in Monterey, Mexico.

Profile photograph by Maya Cortes