An immigrant from both Spain and Puerto Rico, I spent most of my youth in Barcelona, a bilingual and cosmopolitan city rich in art and architecture, in a society that actively resisted an imposed dictatorship and peacefully negotiated a return to democracy. My aesthetic formation occurred during the last decades of Modernism, and my work, if not minimalist, remains succinct, elegant and austere, even while being playful.

At different times I have worked professionally in illustration, textile design, product design and manufacture, and architectural design. For my own development, i have worked with mobiles and political collage, with photography and experimental short films, designed and built furniture, designed, produced and marketed masks, lighting and jewelry, and explored extensively the sculptural possibilities of folded paper. Nowadays I make ceramic and mixed-media sculptures, one of a kind functional work, and site-specific installations.

As a sculptor, ceramist and architect, I am interested in natural and human-made forms that contain, protect and shape life, hard walls around empty space: shells, hulls, buildings. I aim for forms that will have a strong presence and be intriguing and beautiful, proportionate and harmonic inside and out: the poetics of space. My recent ceramic work consists mostly of thin porcelain sculptures. They are minimal but intriguing forms, in dynamic equilibrium, that seem to defy gravity. They are organic abstractions that evoke aspects of nature, but also of geometry, architecture or music and pack their energy like a haiku poem. While I work, I often listen to music, mostly Baroque, and it seems that the structure of the melodies, the rhythm, the point and counterpoint, acquire an almost palpable volume that somehow I try to capture in my work. Having a background in architectural design, I sketch and study variations of the form before starting a piece. Sometimes I draw elevations, plans and sections to understand how to build it and how it will support itself when the clay softens during firing. I sometimes make small models to study the form or full size templates to guide me during construction. When I recently showed my work in the prestigious Ann Arbor Street Art Fair, I was delighted to hear patrons and fellow artists attribute to my work what I believe art can achieve: “your work makes me think better”, “your work makes me feel at peace”, “your work makes the world a better place”.

Since my days in Barcelona I have perceived art, in its multiple forms, as the unique expression of a society’s spirit. Art can be an agent of deliverance and change, it can exalt and heal the spirit. Art can make the world a better place.