Esperanza Cortés

Esperanza Cortés

My interest in the folk art traditions, art rituals, music and dance of Latin America, The Caribbean and Africa and their continuous, evolving changes are at the core of my sculptures, paintings, installations and interventions. I utilize a wide variety of materials and artistic methods often in combination with reworked found objects that are impregnated with cultural symbols that act as sites of memory. These hand crafted artworks create an intimate repository for individual and collective memory and implement the human body as a symbol and expression of nature, vulnerability and power. My recent work examines the extent to which a consciousness, national or personal, defines itself through the opposing force of a transcultural experience.

Physicality informs my practice through body memory. As a former afro latin dancer, my work seeks to underscore and use sacred space and the patterns of dance and percussion. I use music and fragments of histories as departure points to investigate and build the structure and space of the installations.

Esperanza (hope) is a guiding force in the making of the work, which is a call and response to people, culture, place and history.  My installations which are organic and improvisational constructions are infused with hope and renewal.

My artwork which is poetically and intricately crafted encourages viewers to reconsider social and historical narratives especially when dealing with Colonialism and raises critical questions about the politics of erasure and exclusion.

 and exclusion.

Read more: www.esperanzacortes.com