Cortés was born in Santa Fé de Bogotá, Colombia in 1952. Cortés did his artistic studies at the academia de Artes in Bogotá and later at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He began painting landscapes and still life of fruits, vegetables and natural plants over 35 years ago. As Cortés personal studies evolved, he began to focus more on objects such as vessel, tools and implements used in every day life. His objective was in finding elements that give him the opportunity to discover the mass of an object through the study of light and shadow. Cortés has always drawn his main inspiration from the human body, abstract forms and the expression of movement.

Cortés first collective exhibition (Alumnos de la Escuela de Arte de Bogotá), was juried at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in 1973. His first individual exhibition called ;Volumen y Paisaje, was juried in 1978 at the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango. Another first for Cortés was when he founded and managed the Escuela de Pintura de Ecopetrol (Petroleum Company of Colombia) in Santa fé de Bogotá in 1994.

Alirio Cortés has many privately held collections in important places around the world such as Barcelona Spain, Paris France, Caracas Venezuela, London England and of course in several cites throughout Colombia and United States.