CRISTINA CÓRDOVA

ABOUT

(b. 1976, Boston, MA, lives and works in Penland, NC)

Native to Puerto Rico, Cristina Córdova creates figurative compositions that explore the boundary between the materiality of an object and our involuntary dialogues with the self-referential. Images captured through the lens of a Latin American upbringing question socio-cultural notions of gender, race, beauty, and power.  Córdova has received numerous grants including the North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship Grant, a Virginia Groot Foundation Recognition Grant, several International Association of Art Critics of Puerto Rico awards, and a prestigious United States Artist Fellowship award in 2015.

Córdova has had solo exhibitions at the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, (Alfred, NY), and her work is included in the collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, (Washington, DC), Colección Acosta de San Juan Puerto Rico, (San Juan, PR), the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, (Charlotte, NC), and Museum of Contemporary Art, (San Juan, PR). In 1998, Córdova completed her BA at the University of Puerto Rico, and she received her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2002. Córdova is represented by Ferrin Contemporary.

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA

CV

BIO

STATEMENTS

ON HER WORK

Through my work I seek to generate figurative compositions that explore the boundary between the material driven, sensorial experience of an object and the psychological resonance of our involuntary dialogues with the self-referential.

I am driven by the primal act of imbuing an inanimate representation with a sense of presence, transforming it into the inspired repository of our deepest longings and aspirations. My goal is to have these compositions perform both as reflections of our shared humanity as well as question socio-cultural notions of gender, race, beauty and power.

ON NATURE/NURTURE

I was born into a household that both challenged and upheld gender archetypes. This simultaneity created a fluid identity in my creative perspective that has moved me to engage with a wide spectrum of narrative embodiments from the sexually untethered and universal to the absolutely feminine. I am human, I am Puerto Rican, I am a woman. Each of these breaks into a thousand fractals that create the prism through which my work comes into the world.

ON JUNGLA

At its most basic level Jungla refers to a region of dense, intractable wilderness that sustains an ongoing evolutionary dance governed by uncivilized forces. This tropical landscape of my youth is a beacon to an identity, tying me back to a specific geography and the sediment of generations. It’s unrelenting influence speaks of luscious yet ominous constructs that echo the socio-political conditions in the Caribbean. It’s unruly mystery seeps out of its confines to also serve as metaphor for a creative process anchored in that liminal space between chaos and balance. A practice that gathers significance amidst the subconscious forces that underpin reality and the firm directives of the ego. Through image and form, Jungla explores the relationship between these human and geographic connections.

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA
VIRTUAL WORKSHOP

* Cristina is offering this code for a 25% discount: LEARNFROMHOME *

JOIN OVER 100 STUDENTS!

ABOUT THE COURSE

I am excited to share my first online course with you. This class gathers 18 years of insight and information regarding the head that I put to use daily in my own studio practice. The course takes you step by step to help you navigate the structure and surface of the head through detailed demos, patterns and diagrams that simplify the complicated dynamics of the human form. It is designed to meet you at any level. This versatile slab-building approach will empower you to build fabulous, hollow ceramic heads at any scale. Let’s jump in!

Because of the slow, gradual unfolding of a clay sculpture it is often hard to relay the full arc of a piece from beginning to end in the traditional workshop context. This course will offer an intimate vantage point to study and understand all of the steps, tools and materials that come into play to create a clay head. With the methods showcased in this course and the open floor chat sessions between demonstrations to answer questions you will be fully empowered to create clay heads of different scales in your own studio. This course includes supplemental printed material that follows the course structure and several opt-ins to customize your experience.

Artists explore issues of gender, race, culture and place, offering true expressions of their experience in this world.

Featuring potter Diego Romero, photographer Cara Romero, furniture maker Wendy Maruyama, and sculptor Cristina Córdova.

InFrame – Cristina Cordova from InFrame on Vimeo.