Catherine Guevara
Biography
Catherine Guevara
For the past seven years, Catherine Guevara has been researching and teaching ceramics, using the medium as a space for transformation and storytelling. Her work invites women to reimagine their relationship with femininity and their new homes through the tactile, transformative process of clay. By examining the ceramic vessel—an object that is abundant, hollow, and utilitarian—she explores its metaphorical connections to the feminine form and its cultural narratives.
Feminine Reservoirs – Reservorios Femeninos represents the culmination of this exploration: a collaborative ceramic project inspired by Guevara’s memories of jet-black barro pots from her grandmother’s kitchen, traditionally used for making broth or frijoles. This series reclaims the vessel as a symbol of resilience and identity while interrogating its intersections with femininity, misogynistic interpretations of the female body, and colonial histories. For Guevara, these narratives are as porous and prone to cracking as the ceramic itself.
In Whistling Vessels – Vasijas Silbadoras, Guevara pays homage to the pre-Hispanic peoples of the Andes, who created ceramic instruments that facilitated communication with ancestors, other species, and the natural world. These pieces, built as hollow, water-filled vessels, release soft, chiming sounds when rocked or blown into. This work serves as both ritual and tribute, deepening her connection to ancestral legacies and honoring the spiritual resonance of Indigenous traditions.
Meditative Spaces - Invisible Cities – Ciudades Invisibles extends Guevara’s practice into the realm of interactive architectural objects. These terracotta pieces evoke “architecture without architects,” functioning as reservoirs of time, memory, and space. They invite visitors to sit, rest, and reconnect with inner landscapes, echoing the cyclical motion of the moon and embodying themes of permanence and impermanence.
Guevara’s practice intertwines themes of time, ritual, and decolonisation, breaking the functional and spatial boundaries of ceramics to reconnect with cultural and personal narratives. Her work explores the parallels between the migrant diaspora, Indigenous experiences, and global ceramic traditions, creating spaces for reflection, encounter, and transformation through clay.