Home Artist Programs Supported Artists Beatriz Cortez

Beatriz Cortez

Los Angeles and Davis, California

Silvery lines outline a roughly square opening surrounded by bands of blue and green in this disk-like steel sculpture. Straight and curved lines create the impression of a view down onto a map or footprint, and silver silhouettes are spaced around the perimeter of the sculpture, which represents a 1524 bird's eye view and spherical map of the ancient city of Tenochtitlán built in the middle of Lake Texcoco by the Aztecs.

Lake Texcoco

2025

A welded steel monolith stands in a grassy area at Storm King Art Center in front of trees that open onto a distant view of fields and hills under a cloudy sky. The shiny but textured surface of the metal form is separated into sections, which are encased in black lines, creating the impression of stones stacked as in a fieldstone wall.

Stela Z (Contrary Warrior)

2023

Photographed on the JJ Harvey fireboat in the Hudson River during its trajectory from Storm King Art Center to Troy, NY under a yellow- and blue tinted sky, a pyramidal sculpture sits on a metal-footed plinth in the bow of a boat. The sculpture is made up of silvery gray steel bulges outlined with black. Some sections fit together like irregular cobblestones and other areas, especially at the top, are made up of smaller sections outlined in black.

Ilopango, the Volcano that Left

2023

A pod-like welded steel free-standing sculpture in the shape of a space capsule is partially open on one side and is lit with fuchsia-pink light. Sitting just behind the pod, a second structure made up of metal beams create a ball-shaped cage in which plants grow, a space garden, carrying plants and a carved stone with a formula for the distribution of seeds.

Chultún El Semillero

2021

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About Beatriz Cortez

Beatriz is a Salvadoran artist with long black hair. Here she smiles and sits with one ankle crossed over the other knee in front of the pod-shaped sculpture. She wears all-black clothing and shoes.
Photo by by Ruben Diaz

Beatriz Cortez is a multidisciplinary artist born in El Salvador and based in Los Angeles and Davis, CA. Her work explores simultaneity, multiple temporalities, the untimely, and speculative imaginaries of the future. Her recent solo exhibitions include Storm King Art Center (2023), Williams College Museum of Art (2023), Commonwealth and Council (2026; 2022), and Pitzer College Art Galleries (2022). Her work was included in the 60th International Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, Foreigners Everywhere (2024); 14th Shanghai Biennial, Cosmos Cinema (2023-24); Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes (2026) and Museo Anahuacalli (2026), Mexico City; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2025-2026); Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (2026); and New Museum, New York (2026). Cortez has received the Latinx Artist Fellowship (2023); Borderlands Fellowship, Vera List Center for Art and Politics (2022-2024); Artadia Los Angeles Award (2020); and the inaugural Frieze LIFEWTR Sculpture Prize (2019). She teaches at the University of California, Davis.

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Fellowship, 2026

Website / Social Links

“ My work is about memory, movement, and migration. I think of memory as part of a process of transformation, movement, becoming other, nomadism. Through my work, I explore the migration of people, plants, land, and bodies of water. I build memory in order to imagine other migrations and possible futures.”