While celebrating life, death, and the afterlife, Joel Gaitan’s work studies the matters of self-identity, sexuality, and ancestral lineage. From forgotten tongues, to erased cultures, Gaitan immerses into traditional hand building clay techniques, keeping a sacred tradition from Nicaragua & Central America alive in a colonized world. Raised within Pentecostalism, Gaitan still carries the music, verses, and The Holy Spirit with his own interpretation. Gaitan highlights Nicaragüense lifestyle and aesthetics with ceramics and other mediums depicting portraits, utilizing elements of poetry, colors, and storytelling.  Gaitan uses each work as an offering to the ancestors; those who have been encountered, and those who have not.

Dedicado a Nicaragua, Nicaragüita.