My work is based on a concept related to nature. I have always observed and admired the changes of a natural evolution. I have firmly believed that these changes enrich me deeply as a person and professionally.

In my creative work I have had very clear reverence, creativity, ceremony, respect for nature and I appreciate the possibility of working with the ceramics that have the artistic language in which the four elements of the imaginary universe concur more sensitively.

Tarkovzqski, under the conception of the poetics of time, refers that a poet “uses the elements that have a correspondence with certain emotions: fire, water, earth and wind, always appear as resonances of internal emotions or amplifications of certain feelings”, my relationship with the clay is intimately connected with emotions and feelings.

My proposals are considered work ceremonies in which I can develop my creativity, taking up forms and material that I find in the natural environment and that somehow appropriate them to develop my work starting from the clay and where I give life with curves, defining profiles and textures by a caress or a cut.

Contemporary life undoubtedly permeates my work, the materials I integrate, the information and experiences of great sculptors in the world make my work have a place in current art.

Mariana Velázquez

http://marianavelazquez.com/

email: velazquezhamariana@gmail.com

Biographical

Born in Xalapa, Mexico in 1955. She entered the Talleres libres of the Universidad Veracruzana. María Bofill, Kitoichi Kishimoto, Javier Cervantes, Enrique Mestre, Juan Ortí, Graciela Olio, Toni Hambleton, are among the teachers who have contributed to her training as a ceramist. Her works have been exhibited in different museums and cultural centers in Mexico, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Denmark, and Canada. She has presented her work in more than 25 collective exhibitions and 23 individual exhibitions.

She has made artistic residencies in Mexico and abroad: in 2016, Escuela Nacional de Cerámica, Tapalpa, Jalisco, México. 2006 Pilchuck Glass School, Seatle, United States. 2004 Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada. 2002. 29th Internacional Symposium World of Ceramics in Arandjelovac, Yugoslavia.

In 2012 with the project “Recoger Flores” the Creadores con Trayectoria IVEC-CONACULTA scholarship.

She was recognized with the Premio Nacional de la Ceramica, 2016, Sculpture category, in San Pedro Tlaquepaque, Jalisco.

She received the Premio Nacional 2014 de la Ceramica “Galardon Pantaleón Panduro" for her career, work and outstanding national contribution to enrich the ceramic cultural heritage of the country, in San Pedro Tlaquepaque, Jalisco.

In 2019, she was recognized as a member of the International Academy of Ceramics (AIC) and artistic member of the National System of Creators of the National Fund for Culture and Arts in Mexico.

For 35 years she founded her ceramic workshop Mariana Veláquez located in Zoncuantla, Coatepec, Veracruz, where she creates her personal work, teaches young people and adults; organizes seminars for young people with disabilities and advises other plastic artists.