The Department of Art and Art History is excited to welcome Beatriz Cortez to the art studio program. Beatriz Cortez came to campus in the spring 2022 as Teaching Artist in Residence for The Manetti Shrem California Studio. She will join us again this fall as an Associate Professor of Art.  

Cortez is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores simultaneity, life in different temporalities and different versions of modernity. She is particularly interested in issues of memory and loss in the aftermath of war and the experience of migration. Beatriz received her M.F.A. in Art from the California Institute of the Arts and her Ph.D. in Literature and Cultural Studies from Arizona State University. 

She has had solo exhibitions at Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles; Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA; Craft Contemporary Museum, Los Angeles; Clockshop, Los Angeles; Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles; Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles; Centro Cultural de España de El Salvador; and Museo Municipal Tecleño, El Salvador.

Cortez has shown in numerous group exhibitions including Frieze Sculpture in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles and Frieze Sculpture at Rockefeller Center, New York; FUTURES at the Smithsonian Arts + Industries, Washington, D.C.; In Plain Sight at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle; Candelilla, Coatlicue, and the Breathing Machine at Ballroom Marfa, in Texas; Unfolding Universes at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Colombia, among others.

Her work is currently exhibited in two solo shows: “The Volcano that Left” at Storm King Art Center, New York (until Nov. 13, 2024) and “The Portals” at Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, MA (until May 12, 2024). 

In addition to the recent Teaching Artist in Residence for The Manetti Shrem California Studio, Cortez has received numerous awards, including her most recent 2023 Latinx Artist Fellowship from the US Latinx Art Forum.