Esperanza Cortes

Purple Heart

2020

Medium: clay, chains, oil on panel Esperanza Cortés is a Colombian born multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Cortés has been exhibited nationally in galleries and museum...

medium: installation, table, mirror, 20 glass and metal beaded clay sculptures Esperanza Cortés is a Colombian born multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Cortés has been ...

Medium: clay figure, fresco, wood Esperanza Cortés is a Colombian born multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Cortés has been exhibited nationally in galleries and museums...

The artist says of her work... Arrested Symphony is an exhibition incorporating sculptures, reliefs, drawings and hanging works that explore the theme of injustice that is at the roots of the predatory gem and mineral excavation industry. While at a residency in Knoxville, Tennessee, I discovered that Oakridge was only 30 miles away. Oakridge played a key role in the development of the Atom Bomb and the Manhattan Project. I began an exploration and comparison of Uranium and Emeralds. These minerals look very much alike, beautiful but dangerous on their effect on civil conflict. Colombia my birthplace, has the finest Emeralds in the world. The mining of Emeralds was an important element in the continued colonization of the region. Emeralds have helped to fund the more than 60-year conflict which has taken over 450,000 lives and displaced about 5.7 million people. Uranium has brought destruction to a level which altered the future of warfare. The developments made during the Manhattan Project led to the death of about 700,000 people and its effects are still felt around the world. I use Colombia as an example, however this situation is repeating itself in many parts of the world. Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo are all involved in brutal civil conflicts fueled by Blood Diamonds. This project will make visual the human cost extracted with these minerals, once exposed to the light of day they can never be unearthed. My practice is an ongoing object-based exploration through which I create artworks which are organic and improvisational constructions that are infused with hope and renewal. The hand-crafted artworks are poetically and intricately crafted, creating an intimate repository for the individual and collective memory and implement the human body as a symbol and expression of nature, vulnerability and power. The work encourages viewers to reconsider social and historical narratives especially when dealing with the aftermath of Colonialism and raises critical questions about the politics of erasure and exclusion. ESPERANZA CORTÉS is a Colombian born contemporary multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Cortés has exhibited in the United States in solo and group exhibitions in venues including Smack Mellon Gallery, Neuberger Museum of Art, Bronx Museum of Art, Queens Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, MoMA PS1, Socrates Sculpture Park and White-box Gallery in New York City. Nationally Cortes exhibitions include Cleveland Art Museum, OH, CSU Galleries at Cleveland University, OH, Helen Day Art Center, VT and The Lorenzo Homar...

"These inflated objects are grown more than fabricated. Through the process of inflation, the application of the air to the geometric construction defines form at the moment of inflation." It is the pragmatic that draws Thomas. Asked about his influences he asserts that his primary influences do not come from the realm of art but rather from everyday living. “I don’t eat, sleep, and breathe art,” he comments. His discovery of metal-working arose in a similar, practical way. Thomas had been sculpting with stone and asked someone to show him how to forge his own chisel. This was the start of his exploration of forging techniques and after a time he gave up working with stone to work with metal. One of the key aspects of blacksmithing that intrigued Thomas was fact that it isn’t instantly gratifying, and it poses questions that aren’t easily solved. He interned with Tom Joyce...

Joshua Bernbaum Extroverre Purple, Black, and White, 2015 Cut, wheel-carved and etched blown glass 9h x 13.50w x 2.75d in $ 3,500

A collision. A landslide. A tectonic shift and a tumbling of boulders reveal geological strata that have been hidden for centuries. Nicholas Crombach’s Landslip is a slow unfurling o...

The artwork of Alejandra España is an invitation to her intimate cosmogony. In it, she displays modules to give meaning to the observer through the configuration of maps or cartograp...