Artist Statement

As an artist, I create mixed media sculptures that use textiles, ceramics, and found objects to highlight the constructed nature of racial, gender, and class identity. Through a dialogue between domestic items and historical research, especially of the 18th and 19th century, I aim to challenge notions of family, home, and belonging by foregrounding the enduring impact of enslavement across the U.S., Caribbean, and Americas. With fibers and clay as my conceptual anchors, I draw from the rich material lineages of West Africa, Spain, and the Americas to create objects that can carry memory, tension, and defiance. Domestic household items have a long history and rather than seeing them as innocent cultural markers, I want viewers to question how these prized and valuable commodities, handed down from generation to generation, are actually symbols for how the world is seen. Culturally they convey who matters socially, and who does not. By transforming objects to more accurately convey the human cost involved, I aim to have viewers question the historical legacy of colonization and enslavement. I aim to have viewers recognize how the past still lives on with us in the present as evidenced by our complex identities and social lives.

Bio

Joey Quiñones is a fiber artist, ceramicist, and mixed media sculptor. Their work focuses on African American and Caribbean history,  specifically queer, Afro-Puerto Rican identity. They were selected as an Emerging Artist of 2020 by Ceramics Monthly, an Augusta Savage Grant recipient by the National Sculpture Society, and an Annual Prize Finalist by Manifest Gallery. Their work has been shown nationally and internationally at venues such as the Palais de Tokyo, Manifest Gallery, the Akron Art Museum,  the Crocker Museum, the Shepherd, the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, the Winterthur Museum, and The Sculpture Center. They have an MFA in Studio Art from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa. They have had residencies at Vermont Studio Center, the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library, and the Arts/Industry residency in Foundry at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.  They are currently the Artist-in-Residence/Head of the Fiber Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI.

All images subject to copyright 2025