Program: Ace AIR Location: Ace Hotel New York Date of Stay: 01.08.16 Artist: Esperanza Cortés

As the events of September 11 unfolded, artist Esperanza Cortés was living close by. She remembers walking down the streets and watching as people fled to safety, how their eyes appeared in stark contrast to the dust and soot-covered faces to which they belonged. So began Esperanza’s interest in the eye, a subject she’s investigated and studied through drawing and painting over the past 15+ years. 

The final image above, Peek, is an 18″ diameter window installation featuring 13 eye portraits. Preceding it is Ojo, a 6.5" x 6.5" work in ink on handmade paper. And just above Ojo you’ll find documentation of Migration, 150 eye portraits on paper covering about 18 feet of Ace Hotel New York wall space. That is a lot of work for one night; our thanks to Esperanza.

Esperanza Cortés is a NYC based artist with national exhibitions including: Bronx Museum, Queens Museum, El Museo Del Barrio, Neuberger Museum, Cleveland Art Museum and New York State Museum. International exhibitions include Greece, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Japan, Mexico, Colombia, Dominican Republic and Spain. Additionally, her work is included in both institutional and private collections in the United Sates and abroad. Cortés is a recipient of grants, awards and residencies including Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, Puffin Foundation, Joan Mitchell Center, Sculpture Space, MoMA PS1, Fountainhead Residency, Socrates Sculpture Park, Brooklyn Children’s Museum and Bielska BWA Gallery, Poland.

Program: Ace AIR Location: Ace Hotel New York Date of Stay: 01.01.17 Artist: Glendalys Medina

For our first AIR night of 2017, Glendalys produced two sets of complimentary work. First, a collection of abstract architectural drawings depicting lamps, rooms, our in room refrigerator and more. Second, guests were invited up to Glendalys’ room for an intimate reading of the poem Dear Me. We were left the drawing above, Twin Lamps, as a record of the night. Further documentation, including audio recordings and additional drawings, is available through the artist’s instagram.

Born in Puerto Rico and raised in the Bronx, Glendalys Medina is an interdisciplinary artist receiving her MFA from Hunter College in 2008. Medina’s work has been exhibited at such notable venues as the New Museum, Artists Space, Bronx Museum and El Museo del Barrio. She was awarded a SIP fellowship at EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in 2016, a BACK IN FIVE MINUTES artist residency at El Museo Del Barrio in 2015, a residency at Yaddo in 2014, the Rome Prize in Visual Arts in 2013, a NYFA Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Art in 2012, and the Bronx Museum's Artist in the Marketplace residency in 2010.

Art by: Chakima Micheau