Jorge Bernal

As observed by Alexa Brazilian in a recent article in the New York  Times magazine - The Beautifully Flawed Work of Emerging Ceramists - “In Western culture we’re always striving to see how close the hand can get to the precision of a machine, but once you create something immaculate, where do you go from there?  Imperfection, on the other hand, has no limits.”

Clay hand building has been a love of mine for many years. My latest clay pieces are simple hand-built vessels, wall panels, casitas  or sculptures that always carry a narrative. An important consideration besides color is “texture”, so mark-making has a special appeal to the primitive — a new, yet old process that is inspired by the petroglyphs.

Jorge Luis Bernal was born in Havana, raised in Jersey City and attended art school in South Florida. He received his MFA in architecture from Virginia Tech and a BFA from Florida International University in ceramics and art history. He spent most of his earlier career practicing architecture and teaching college and high school. Bernal moved to Santa Fe in 2013 and soon after started teaching workshops. He is a full-time studio artist working in clay, cold wax/oil and encaustic monotypes.