Joel Gaitan, born in 1995 in Miami, Florida, is a first-generation Nicaraguan American ceramic artist living and working in Miami, Florida. He received his associate's degree in Art Education from Miami Dade College in 2014. He has had solo exhibitions at Art Production Fund, Rockefeller Center, New York, NY (2023); NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL (2023); Fairfax Dorn Projects, East Hampton, NY (2022); 56 Henry, New York, NY (2022), and KDR, Miami, FL (2024, 2021). His works have been in group shows at Pace Gallery, Palm Beach, FL (2023); Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, CA (2023); El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY (2022); and The Pit LA, Los Angeles, CA (2022). Gaitan has been featured in W Magazine (2023), The Center Magazine (2023), Cultured Magazine (2022), artnet.com (2022), and others. He was an artist in residence at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France, 2023. He was 2023's Art Production Fund Artist in Focus for the public art program at Rockefeller Center, NY. He is a 2024 USLA Forum Latinx Artist Fellowship recipient. His work is in the public collections of the NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL; The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC; The Bunker, Palm Beach, FL; El Museo Del Barrio, New York, NY, and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL. Joel Gaitan is represented by KDR, Miami, FL, and The Pit, Los Angeles.
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 himself in 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 interpretation. Gaitan highlights Nicaragüense lifestyle and aesthetics through ceramics and other media, depicting portraits that utilize elements of poetry, color, and storytelling. Gaitan uses each work as an offering to the ancestors, those who have been encountered, and those who have not.