Beatriz Cortez (b. 1970, San Salvador; lives and works in Los Angeles and Davis) received an MFA from California Institute of the Arts (2015) and a PhD in Latin American Literature from Arizona State University (1999). Cortez is faculty at University of California, Davis. Solo and two-person exhibitions have been held at Americas Society, New York (2025); Commonwealth and Council, Mexico City (2024); Storm King Art Center, New Windsor (2023); Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown (2023); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2022); Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont (2022); Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2021); Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles (2019); Occidental College, Los Angeles (2019); Clockshop, Los Angeles (2018); and Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park (2016). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis (2024); Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga (2024); 60th Venice Biennale (2024); Tufts University Art Galleries, Medford (2022); Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (2021, 2016); Michigan State University Broad Art Museum, East Lansing (2021); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Panama (2021); 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica (2020); Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2020); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2019); Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (2019); TEOR/éTica, San José (2019); Ballroom Marfa (2019); Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens (2019); John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan (2018); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017). Cortez is a recipient of Latinx Arts Fellowship, Mellon Foundation (2023), New School Vera List Center Borderlands Fellowship (2022-24), Artadia Los Angeles Award (2020), Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2018), Artist Community Engagement Grant (2017), and California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2016). Cortez has participated in residencies at Atelier Calder, Saché (2022); California Studio Manetti Shrem, University of California, Davis (2022); and Longenecker-Roth, University of California, San Diego (2021).

Cortez’s work is in the collections of El Paso Museum of Art; Ford Foundation, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Lawrence University, Appleton; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Michigan State University Broad Art Museum, East Lansing; Museo Comunitario Kaqjay, Patzicía; and Museo de la Imagen y la Palabra, San Salvador.