Joel Gaitan is a Nicaraguan American artist whose work explores identity, spirituality, and the stories carried through ancestry. He uses hand-built clay techniques passed down through generations, combining them with the symbols, gestures, and imagery that shaped his upbringing.

Gaitan creates sculptures that blend humor, devotion, and everyday life, often moving between the earthly and the supernatural. His figures honor the people and traditions that came before him while imagining new worlds rooted in memory, ritual, and ancestral storytelling.

He works across sculpture, installation, and mixed media, building pieces that feel both personal and universal. Gaitan lives and works between Miami and New York.