GRACIA ISABEL GÓMEZ CANTOYA

Originally from Mexico City, I explore themes related to colonialism and migration through functional and sculptural ceramic pieces. I recently started developing a new body of work influenced by the historical legacy of colonialism that lives on today and how it affects me as a Mexican living in Canada. In my studio practice I began to explore themes of division and segregation by asking formal questions about how objects relate to each other. I came to insert myself into the work through memory, history and contemplation of two different cultures.   

Gracia Isabel Gracia Isabel is a Toronto based artist, studio technician and instructor. She graduated with high honours from Sheridan College Craft and Design Ceramics in 2016. A few of her exhibiting highlights include Yuill Family Gallery at Medalta: AZUL-COLONIAL-BLUE (2022), the Gardiner Museum: Convergences (2022) and Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project (2019); Craft Ontario Gallery: The Body has Reasons which Reason Knows Not Of, 2019, The Embassy of Canada in Hungary: Muscle Memory, 2018. She won the TOAE Best of Sculpture award in 2016 and a Craft Ontario Award in 2017.

Last July, she finished a year-long artistic residence at Medalta International Artists in Residence Program, Shaw International Centre for Contemporary Ceramics, AB. Currently, Gracia Isabel continues developing this new body of work as an Artist in Residence at the Lunenburg School of the Arts, NS. 

In 2020 she started CLAY Voices Symposium on Instagram, a yearly community building on line gathering of ceramics artists across Canada. The 3^rd edition was live-streamed last April 2022.