Bio


João Carqueijeiro Portrait at work

João Carqueijeiro was born in 1954 and is based in Porto, Portugal. Completed in 1982 the degree in Drawing at Cooperativa Árvore (ESAD), under Sá Nogueira’s mentorship. He pursued his studies in ceramics and specialized in Potter’s Wheel, Stoneware Glazing and Raku at Escola de Ceràmica de la Bisbal, in Catalonia, Spain. Since 1981 he has been teaching ceramics, both Professional Training and in Specialization Courses, as well as Internship Orientation, Workshops and Course Programming. He is a Ceramics Trainer, accredited by the Scientific-Pedagogical Council for Continuing Education since 1995 and by the portuguese Institute for Employment and Vocational Training. Teaches Ceramic Courses at Cooperativa Árvore since 1986, of which he is also a partner. In 2005, was a founding member of the Ceramics Project “Oficina 2000 & 5”. In 2007, he was a member of the Jury, at the 8th International Biennial of Artistic Ceramics in Aveiro. Designed and produced in 2010 a 100 meter ceramic panel for the facade of Crowne Plaza Vilamoura Hotel. In 2011 designed and produced a 10x3 meter modular and tridimensional ceramic glazed panel, for Biennial of Cerveira’s Forum.



Awards
Year
Occasion
Location
1989
1st Prize at Árvore's 2nd Small Forms Exhibition
Porto, Portugal
1989
Honorable Mention at the International Biennial of Artistic Ceramics of Aveiro
Aveiro, Portugal
1991
1st Prize in Creative Ceramics
IEFP, Portugal


João Carqueijeiro at the International Symposium of Ceramics of Alcobaça


Art Collections Representation
Institution
Location
Alcobaça's Municipal Museum
Alcobaça, Portugal
National Tile Museum
Lisbon, Portugal
Luís de Camões Museum
Macau, China
I.E.F.P. (Institute for Employment and Vocational Training)
Porto and Valença, Portugal
Barcelos Pottery Museum
Barcelos, Portugal
Amakusa City Hall
Amakusa, Japan
Portugal Embassy
Tokyo, Japan
AMI (Assistência Médica Internacional)
Porto, Portugal
Contemporary Art Museum of the Biennial Art Foundation of Cerveira
Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal
Municipal Museum Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso
Amarante, Portugal
Aveiro City Hall
Aveiro, Portugal


João Carqueijeiro and expanded slate


João Carqueijeiro has been dedicated to ceramics since 1982 being his intrinsic activity.


The high temperature fused slate (a.k.a. pyro-expanded slate), the colored stoneware through iron oxides, the sand jets, the black slates, they are all determining elements of the author's creativity, often polarized between decorative elegance and an earthy rudeness, evocative of primitive expressions.

João Carqueijeiro and expanded slate

Thus, the fluidity of linear rhythms and the bodily plasticity of sober volumes, converge in a work of rare seduction punctuated by somewhat ascetic formal purifications. Evident modernity echoes with latent ancestry, allowing it to admit some influence coming from archetypal models of African sign or totemic impact.

João Carqueijeiro and expanded slate

The rough or sandy textures are also a constant through unusual objects, in which the magical or dreamlike overtones exceed pragmatic functionality. At times, Carqueijeiro's creativity takes on a combination of humor and cosmological lyricism, stressed by a vitalistic energy that is emblematic of phallic structures, as it can detach from a memory of a great sculpture of Brâncuși, with the evocation of mythical mediterranean amphoras, but shaped by humble everyday artifacts.

João Carqueijeiro and expanded slate

In fact, the greatest art of the 20th century owed a lot to the reinvention of traditions submerged in a civilizational subconscious that only the authors of the various aesthetic languages were able to assume, establishing a discourse of inexpressible archeology or a psychoanalysis of a social “habitat”.

João Carqueijeiro and expanded slate

Woven with a similar cultural awareness, but erected with an executive rigor, the result of a specific handicraft requirement, affects the chromatism of informal petrified smears, open to nocturnal transparencies or melancholic ashes, Carqueijeiro’s ceramics point to the referred poetics. It therefore restores the full dignity of authentic artistic manifestations to the practice of its craft.


Fernando Pernes, 1991 (translated from the original in portuguese)


Fernando Duarte Velasco Pernes (1936-2010) was a Portuguese essayist, professor and art critic. Was the first artistic director of the Serralves Foundation. Was awarded the Order of Merit Commendation by the President of the Portuguese Republic as well as the Gold Medal of the City of Porto by the City Council.

João Carqueijeiro and expanded slate