Cristina Córdova received her BA from the University of Puerto Rico and MA from Alfred University. In 2011 she created “TravelArte,” an educational platform arranging experiences to teach students about ceramics in different locations. She has pieces in several permanent collections including the Renwick Gallery in Washington DC and the Mint Museum of Craft and Design in North Carolina.
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| "Autorretrato como hombre de noche" |
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| "Autorretrato como hombre de noche" |
Córdova uses slab building techniques to create these sometimes life size human figures. She has said that her work does not necessarily relate to the medium but that she uses the medium to work through her ideas. She begins with an idea and a light sketch and uses the clay as a bridge to the finished work. The figure is a vital element to her ideas and it is something everyone can relate to. “I think I am using the figure as a vocabulary to talk about ideas that create this tension and this layering of things that might seem contradictory but coexist.”
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| "El Ray" Clay, Cans, Found wood from Puerto Rico and North Carolina |
In 1999 to New York to attend Alfred University, but still references her culture and life in Puerto Rico. She explains that "there’s an embedded historical device in her work but she is not drawing from it consciously.” Many of her figures seem to be on some sort of journey, whether in their gesture and expression or being physically on a vessel or walking toward something. In her interview for “Soul’s Journey,” she says that through her work she is trying to portray the transition from
something familiar to the unfamiliar and where that puts you. “I think I am using the figure as a vocabulary to talk about ideas that create this tension and this layering of things that might seem contradictory but coexist.”
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| "Las Negras" Clay |
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| "Las Negras" Clay |
Córdova’s pieces also have a lot of movement and gesture, and she pays a lot of attention to every position that each part of the body is in and what it is doing. They “determine where the edge of the eye goes and propel the eye in a certain way and with a certain speed around the figure. It is a balance.” The position of a hand may change whether an idea is provocative or more soft and lyrical. It is an intuitive process as she considers things through herself and then how the viewer will interpret it. “It’s almost like acting. I feel the sculptures through myself. I stage a situation and then I fill it with myself.”
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| "Preludios y Partidas" 2012. Clay, Concrete, Steel, Resin |
Kyra Heron
Sources:
http://www.cristinacordova.com/home
http://www.ceramicart.com.au/cap64.shtml
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBXeAgXJh4Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-NDpOhB1l4
https://archive.is/20130120061949/http://www.cristinacordova.com/news/10/24/Body-Eloquent