James Salaiz

James Salaiz is a sculptor and ceramicist based in New York City. His first experience with clay was as a young child in San Antonio, Texas. It was a medium he was immediately drawn to. This early obsession led him to the ceramic program at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa. There he spent four years mastering his craft while learning how to mix his own glazes, build raku kilns and experiment with hand-built forms. He graduated with honors from Cornell College with a Bachelor’s of Special Studies in ceramics and photography. Over the years he worked for ceramic artists in Boulder, Colorado and San Francisco. He moved to New York and found a position creating prototypes in the studio of iconic potter Jonathan Adler. In 2011, James’s work was introduced to the avant- garde Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo. She invited him to exhibit his sculptures at Comme des Garcons’ Trading Museums in Paris and Tokyo and at her London design outpost, Dover Street Market. Cristina attended the opening of the London exhibition, and it was there she discovered James. She began representing him that year.

James is inspired by nature and the man-made mechanisms that rule it. His work spans the worlds of figurative realism and sculptural minimalism.