Jaime Suárez (Puerto Rico, b. 1946), Wall Tile from the Lost Cities of Clay Series

Contemporary, clay pigment over repurposed foam construction, unsigned. Proceeds to benefit the general Penland Scholarship.

24 5/8 x 24 1/2 x 2 1/4 in.

Being sold to benefit Penland School of Craft, Penland, North Carolina

Penland’s scholarship program exists to make our workshops accessible to those who are not able to participate without financial assistance and to create educational opportunities for people who have been underrepresented at Penland and in the craft world. Proceeds from this auction will help fund existing scholarships, with some proceeds designated towards specific scholarships as noted in the listings.

Born in Puerto Rico, Jaime Suarez is an accomplished sculptor, ceramicist, architect, set designer, and professor. He is considered one of the driving forces behind the development of contemporary ceramics in Puerto Rico as the co-founder of Estudio Caparra in 1972 and Grupo Manos in 1976, which paved the way for the establishment of Casa Candina in 1980, considered instrumental in placing the ceramic medium in the island as one of the principal artistic movements.

Speaking to his most recent body of work exhibited at the Penland School of Craft as part of "El Puente", an exhibition centering the voices of Puerto Rican artists, Suárez states, "My work has developed in an ascending spiral rather than in a linear manner. Several themes have been present and reappearing since the 1970s - one of them being ruins and archeology as testimony of the ephemeral nature of man’s presence in this world and the juxtaposition of the natural and the manmade. Other themes are ritual objects and eroded landscapes. All come together with an interest in texture, which I have realized has become my medium of expression and what has taken me into material investigation beyond my starting point in ceramics. Asking clay what it wants or can be has been a constant in my expressive search which brings me to Penland with these pieces that explore clay as pigment over various supports."

Good estate condition.