JULIA ISIDREZ

Works and lives in Itá, Central, Paraguay

Julia Isidrez learned how to work with clay from her mother Juana Marta Rodas (1925-2013), a craft to which she dedicates herself professionally. Both mother and daughter honour a centuries-old tradition whose roots go back to the pre-Columbian period in Paraguay, following the techniques of their ancestors. Their hometown is a ceramics production centre of its own, based on indigenous experience, specifically Guarani, a people who cultivated the tradition of clay arts, initially characterised by the production of funerary urns and votive vases. This knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, has adapted to the challenges arising from colonisation, the urgencies of modernity and the conflicts of globalisation.

Isidrez’s works focus on a pattern of figures that go beyond pitchers and jars, incorporating reproductions of animals characteristic of her region. Her pieces, with their varied protuberances and whimsical concavities, transform and alter the typical aspects of the animals portrayed, bringing a whole visual vocabulary that reveals the artist’s history, greatly motivated by her mother, and which has so much influence on the ceramists of her region. All the work is done in collaboration with family members and partners who work alongside the artist at the Casa Museo Arte en Barro: Julia Isidrez a Juana Marta Rodas, where she teaches and creates her pieces.

Exhibiting with her mother since an early age, Julia Isidrez’s work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Museo del Barro (Asunción, Paraguay, 1998 and 1999); Bienal do Mercosul (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1999); 35th International Exhibition of Traditional Crafts (Santiago, Chile, 2008); Santiago Triennial (Santiago, Chile, 2009); dOCUMENTA 13 (Kassel, Germany, 2012), Millan Gallery (São Paulo, Brazil, 2017), Centro Cultural del Lago (Areguá, Paraguay, 2021); Kasmin Gallery (New York, USA, 2023), among others. It is worth highlighting her participation in the 60th Biennale di Venezia, entitled Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere and curated by Adriano Pedrosa. In 2024, she also had a solo show entitled Mundo de Julia at the Kasmin Gallery in New York. Her works are in the collections of the Fondation Cartier Pour l’Art Contemporain (Paris, France), the Denver Art Museum (Denver, United States) and the Museo del Barro (Asunción, Paraguay).

Text courtesy Gomide&Co.