Samuel Sarmiento

The ceramic works of Samuel Sarmiento are first of all objects. Depicting myths and literary stories from across the Caribbean and South America, they do so as sculpted surfaces that create their own boundaries. They are self-contained worlds still connected to everything around them. History is palpable, bodies emerge from bodies emerging from bodies – or do they sink back into time, towards an origin we shall never know? There are forests, seas, cities, animals, trees, goddesses and humans and meaningful scenes. Humans tell each other about the universe, how it came to be; they pass on secrets of death and procreation together with truths of conflict and suffering – and a hope of redemption. As Sarmiento’s works capture a vibrant oral tradition, they also encapsulate the act of storytelling itself. At EKWC, he focused on making larger tableaux that allow him to expand individual scenes into intricate epic murals. Sarmiento built his works using slab and hand-builing techniques. He used both underglazes and glazes much like paint, and added drawn and written elements using underglaze pencils. In second and third firings, gold lustres were added to details on top of glossy glazes.