Jordan Corine Cruz

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I create life-sized ephemeral monuments that bleed bright red votive wax. My sculptural practice draws on Afro-Caribbean spiritual traditions, Puerto Rican craft practices, and the layered textures of Bronx block culture. I am inspired by Puerto Rican resistance movements, which explored the division between domestic and public spaces and areas historically undervalued due to colonial, patriarchal, and anti-Black systems. Through process-based sculpture, I mimic the repetition of daily life and labor to investigate how ancestral knowledge is preserved and reshaped through inheritance.

Jordan Corine Cruz is a Puerto Rican visual artist, arts administrator, and educator whose interdisciplinary practice investigates cultural endurance. Cruz received her MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. Her work has been most notably exhibited at the Bronx Museum, Flux Factory, and PHOTOVILLE. She was a 2024 BXMA AIM Fellow and was Artist-in-Residence at BronxArtSpace on Governors Island the same year. In 2019, she organized and hosted "The Culture of Community: A Latinx Photo Symposium" in collaboration with El Museo del Barrio, addressing the visual strategies of community formation across the Latinx diaspora.

Featured Artwork

A life-size, freestanding police barrier cast entirely in red votive wax. Sculptural installation, performance. — Jordan Corine Cruz. Face Each Other, Burn Together, 2023. Votive Wax, 40 x 42 x 29 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.

A life-size, freestanding park bench cast entirely in red votive wax. Sculptural installation, performance. — Jordan Corine Cruz. Opportunity for Stillness, 2025. Votive Wax, 36 H x 73 W x 26 D inches. Photographic documentation by Argenis Apolinario, courtesy of the Bronx Museum.

Sculpture. Votive wax tiles cast from a selection of decorative plaster reliefs my mother sourced from discount stores when I was a child. These objects transformed our Bronx apartment into a space of beauty, care, and imagination and have become bookmarks in my memory. — Jordan Corine Cruz. Untitled (Mom's Home Decor) Votive Wax, 60 x 57. Photograph courtesy of the artist.

Resources

Hyperallergic: Burning Down the Language of Enforcement by Chris Cobb

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Hyperallergic: We Must Do More Than Simply Depict Our Lives by Seph Rodney

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New York Times: At the Bronx Biennial, the Promise of New Voices by Max Lakin

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