João Carqueijeiro inside his studio surrounded by large sculptures and artifacts, looking towards the camera.

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’s 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. Member of the International Academy of Ceramics.

    • 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)

Collections Featured

  • Alcobaça's Municipal Museum

  • National Tile Museum

  • Luís de Camões Museum

  • I.E.F.P. (Institute for Employment and Vocational Training)

  • Barcelos Pottery Museum

  • Amakusa City Hall

  • Portugal Embassy

  • AMI (Assistência Médica Internacional)

  • Contemporary Art Museum of the Biennial Art Foundation of Cerveira

  • Municipal Museum Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso

  • Aveiro City Hall

Solo Exhibitions

    • “XXV Certamen San Agustín" @ CMAE Avilés (Avilés, Spain)

    • SIAC4 @ Guarda Museum (Guarda, Portugal)

    • “À Superfície” @ Casa Branca de Gramido (Gondomar, Portugal)

    • “Floresta” @ SAS-IPVC (Viana do Castelo, Portugal)

    • “Enclaves 2014” @ Barcelos Pottery Museum (Barcelos, Portugal)

    • "Pedras de Terra e Fogo” @ Resende Municipal Museum (Resende, Portugal)

    • Abel Salazar House Museum (Matosinhos, Portugal)

    • Franchini`s Galeria (Porto, Portugal)

    • AMIarte Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Barcelos Pottery Museum (Barcelos, Portugal)

    • Epicentro Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Aveiro City Hall Gallery (Aveiro, Portugal)

    • Labirintho Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Magellan Gallery (Paris, France)

    • Labirintho Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • “D” Gallery (Gondomar, Portugal)

Group Exhibitions

    • 3rd International Biennial of Art Gaia (Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal)

    • Cerveira International Art Biennial (Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal)

    • "7 Formas Poético-Casuísticas" @ Zet Gallery (Braga, Portugal)

    • 2nd International Biennial of Art Gaia (Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal)

    • Guest Artist on the XV International Ceramic Symposium @ Dahab, Egypt (portuguese representative)

    • Guest Artist on the Ceramics Symposium @ Centre National de la Céramique d`Art Sidi Kacem Jélizi (portuguese representative) (Tunis, Tunisia)

    • Baganha Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Illustration and presentation of the poetry book “Em vez do Silêncio” by Eduardo Leal (Porto, Portugal)

    • Illustration and presentation of the poetry books “Esquizofonia” by Eduardo Leal and “Máquina de Lavar Corações” by Renato Cardoso (Porto, Portugal)

    • "A Ceia" @ Santo António Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • "A Poesia Fílmica e as Artes Plásticas" @ Barcelos Municipal Gothic Room (with Architect António Teixeira Lopes) (Barcelos, Portugal)

    • “Escultura Cerâmica Hoje – 5 Autores Portugueses” @ XXI Feria Internacional de Ceramica Contemporanea CERCO (Zaragoza, Spain)

    • “Escultura Cerâmica Hoje – 5 Autores Portugueses” @ Amadeu Souza-Cardoso (Amarante, Portugal)

    • AP'ARTE Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Oikos Exhibition @ Bolsa Palace (Porto, Portugal)

    • "Pintura de Pratos" @ Casa da Capitania (Aveiro, Portugal)

    • "Pintura de Pratos" @ CMAE Avilés (Avilés, Spain)

    • "Homem T" Public Street Exhibition (Porto, Portugal)

    • Art Biennial of Cerveira Municipal Exhibition Room of Tui (Tui, Spain)

    • "Opção: Fora de Portas" @ São Mamede C.A.E. (Guimarães, Portugal)

    • "A Prata da Casa" @ Art Biennial of Cerveira Museum (Porto, Portugal)

    • Franchini`s Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • "Feet to Feet" @ Por Amor À Arte Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Alvarez Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Bobogi Gallery (Aveiro, Portugal)

    • João Pedro Rodrigues Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • "Portuguese Comtemporary Ceramics" (Alcorá, Spain)

    • Guest Artist at Art Biennial of Cerveira with "Deambulatório" (Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal)

    • Oficina das Coisas Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Árvore Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Bobogi Gallery (Aveiro, Portugal)

    • Avizarte Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Bobogi Gallery (Aveiro, Portugal)

    • Ourense Cultural Center (Ourense, Spain)

    • AMI Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Video Art presentation @ Art Biennial of Cerveira (co-directed with Cristina Leal) (Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal)

    • Árvore Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Árvore Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Ceramics Symposium and City Hall Exhibition (portuguese representative) (Amakusa, Japan)

    • AMI Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Gesto Coop Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Esteta Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Ceramic Gathering @ Pottery Museum (Barcelos, Portugal)

    • "Atmosfera" @ Epicentro Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • “Silêncios/Stille” Symposium (Preetz, Germany)

    • Coordenator of NORTE COOP's Façade Mural (Matosinhos, Portugal)

    • “Silêncios/Stille” @ Aveiro Cultural Center (Aveiro, Portugal)

    • Ceramics Symposium (Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal)

    • Ao Quadrado Gallery (Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal)

    • Arménio Losa Municipal Gallery (Matosinhos, Portugal)

    • Portuguese-German Symposium “Silêncios / Stille” (Trancoso, Portugal)

    • Eng. António de Almeida Foundation (Porto, Portugal)

    • International Biennial of Ceramic Art (Aveiro, Portugal)

    • Arménio Losa Municipal Gallery (Matosinhos, Portugal)

    • Ceramic Sculpture Gathering by Petrogal/Árvore (Porto, Portugal)

    • “8 Individuelles” @ Magellan Gallery (Paris, France)

    • Árvore Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Magellan Gallery (Paris, France)

    • Internacional Art Gathering @ Palais des Papes (Avignon, France)

    • International Gathering of Ceramics (Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal)

    • 3 Jovens Ceramistas @ Youth Foundation (Porto, Portugal)

    • Cinq Jeunes Créateurs Portugais (Les Mureaux, France)

    • International Biennial of Ceramic Art (Aveiro, Portugal)

    • Palácio dos Anjos (Algés, Portugal)

    • National Library (Lisbon, Portugal)

    • “L’Europe Des Céramistes” Cultural Center of Yonne (Auxerre, France)

    • Árvore Gallery (Porto, Portugal)

    • Leal Senado / Luís de Camões Museum (Macau, China)

    • Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Modern Art Center (Lisbon, Portugal)

    • International Symposium of Ceramics (Alcobaça, Portugal)

    • X Gathering of European Ceramists (Perigueux, France)

Sculpture by João Carqueijeiro.

“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.”

Sculpture by João Carqueijeiro.

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.

Sculpture by João Carqueijeiro.

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.

Sculpture by João Carqueijeiro.

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”.

Sculpture by João Carqueijeiro.

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.