Mauricio Cortes Ortega is a New York City–based artist and educator whose practice spans printmaking, drawing, collage, and installation to create narrative still lifes and “tabletop menageries”—vessel-like forms that hold memory, history, and storytelling while tracing relationships between humans and the more-than-human world. He earned a BFA from The Cooper Union (2012) and an MFA from Yale University (2016), participated in the Bronx Museum’s AIM program, and received a fellowship from Yale Law School’s Schell Center for International Human Rights. His work has been featured in recent exhibitions, including SOMOS/WE ARE at the Long Island Museum and Letters of a Compass at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center. His recent honors include the 2025–2026 Art Bridge Public Art Commission with the Battery Park City Authority, a 2025 teaching fellowship with the School of Making Thinking at Abrons Arts Center, artist residencies at Casa Lo’ol (Mérida, Yucatán) in 2024 and Interlude (Hudson, NY) in 2023, and an LMCC Creative Engagement Grant (2021). He currently serves as Faculty Chair of Visual Arts at the Berkeley Carroll School in BK, NY.
