Beatriz Cortez’s piece, Ilopango, Stela A (2022) evokes the history of Earth with the concepts of meteorites, igneous rock, and Mayan artifacts. This sculpture is part of Cortez’s stained, weathered metal sculptures on display at the Commonwealth & Council in Los Angeles. Her choice of medium welded steel builds on a sacred thread between geological matter and the migration of people across Earth.
Ilopango, Stela A (2022) specifically considers the volcanic eruption of Ilopango in AD 431. A volcano that is now a caldera filled with one of El Salvador’s largest lakes. Cortez, who hails from El Salvador has researched the importance of the volcanic eruption and its impact: eradicated Mayan settlements, rendered the area inhospitably, deposited tephra as far as Greenland, and likely caused the planet’s temperature to cool.
Her sculptures celebrate charred weld – which would usually be sanded down and reduced, acquire an alien beauty, traveling across the sculpture’s silvery surface to represent the vision of rivers of lava and tectonic plates.
Beatriz Cortez, through her work, investigates the ancient patterns of global migration caused by or due to geographic change. The artist call to attention the omnipresent interconnectedness of nature and humanity’s vulnerability.