AGUSTINA VALERA AND OLIVER AGUSTÍN
Agustina Valera( b. 1962, San Francisco, Peru) and Oliver Agustín( b. 1983, Pucallpa, Peru) are distinguished ceramic artists of the Shipibo- Konibo people, originally from the San Francisco de Yarinacocha community in Ucayali. Valera learned the craft as a child from the women in her family and has developed the ceramic tradition by incorporating new themes and reviving ancestral techniques. Her son Agustín is a pioneer among Shipibo ceramists, having decided to follow the call of the clay in an art form traditionally practiced by women.
The work of both artists is notable for its complexity, monumentality, and technical rigor. One of their recurring themes is that of chomos voladores( Flying vessels)( 2018 – 2019), representations that combine the form of traditional earthenware jars called tinajas— once used as funerary urns and later as containers for masato, an alcoholic beverage employed in rituals and festivals— with the unidentified aerial phenomena( UAPs) of urban legends in the contemporary Amazon, especially Pucallpa. This series depicts physical and spiritual journeys to other worlds, alluding to the journey of Ronin, the great serpent and creator of rivers, who arrived in Amazonia after crossing the cosmos.( CHRISTIAN BENDAYÁN)
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