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Sculptor, ceramist and graphic designer. She earned her BA from Drew University in Madison, NJ, and then went on to study art in Florence at the Studio Art Center International. In her return to Puerto Rico, where she has lived since the age of 8, begins to work as a graphic artist. She took ceramics courses at Casa Candina between 1985 and 1987. In 1990 she received an honorable mention at the second edition of the Biennial of Contemporary Puerto Rican Ceramics, organized by Casa Candina. She has taught ceramics courses at various institutions since 1988, including the School of Plastic Arts of Puerto Rico. In 1992 she joined the Board of Directors of Casa Candina and with them she organized exhibitions inside and outside of Puerto Rico, such as: the Casa Candina Awards: Biennial of Contemporary Puerto Rican Ceramics (1992-2004), Intercambio 3 and Intercambio 3 + 2, Mexico Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Cuba and Dominican Republic (1995-2001), Congelado por el fuego, Casa Candina and contemporary ceramics at the Museo de Arte de Ponce. Castañeda has designed various publications of exhibitions organized by Casa Candina. Her most recent ceramic work has an abundant draft, which plays with light to create shadows that make the works become ones that go beyond the volume of the ceramic artworks per se.
“Fragile, resistant; durable, fleeting; predictable, surprising;
free, limiting; hard… malleable,
opposite words that describe the vast ceramic medium.
Clay plays with the eyes and the hands of its handler,
with the water that wets it,
with the fire that dries it
and with the world that surrounds it,
to give form to that image sculpted in a thought.
Lookouts, lookouts and more lookouts…
Product of my inner game, of joys, sorrows and passions,
Game without rules, nor limitations,
Game of the imagination
that travels through my hands, without duty, nor obligation,
to tell stories of diverse inspiration.
Lookouts…
Can we look from their interior? or can we only look them from the outside?
Can we inhabit them or is it that someone inhabits them?
And their stairs, to go up, to go down, to exit or to enter?
Are these lookuts for those who fly or for those who want to fly?
For the moment they invite us to look to the ongoing debate between
the freedom of flight and the stability of the ground,
the malleability of the dream and the rigidity of the reason,
the fragility of life
and the eternity of memory.”
Aileen Castañeda
1984
1980-1984
1992
1988-1992
1985
2018
2005
2004
2002
1997
1996
1992
1991
2020
2019
2018
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
2019
2003
1998
1991
1990
“Aileen Castañeda, Cerámica para ver y no tocar”. El Nuevo Día, Revista Domingo (San Juan, PR), 31 de marzo de 1991, pp. 12-15.
Pérez Rivera, Tatiana. “Conversaciones con el barro”. El Nuevo Día, Arte y Cultura (San Juan, PR), 21 de agosto de 2002, pp.78.
