Roberto Lugo

born 1981

BiographyA Latinx potter, poet, educator, and activist, Roberto Lugo grew up in Philadelphia as the son of first-generation Puerto Rican transplants from the island to the continental U.S. Though he wasn’t exposed to fine art growing up, he was creative and found an outlet in graffiti, adding tags to the neighborhood surrounding him. From these roots, Lugo has continued to explore art in relation to community and draw inspiration from street art’s visual language. Early in his career, he gravitated toward ceramics and the potential to rethink historic forms in a contemporary context. He earned his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and MFA from Penn State. Combining graffiti-style writing, decorative patterns, and portraits of historical and popular cultural figures on the surface of his pots, he creates objects that feature Black people and non-Black people of color and counter histories of exclusion. Self-described as the “ghetto potter” who sometimes sets up his pottery wheel outdoors on the sidewalk to interact with his community, he encourages others who might not see themselves in the history of art and craft to take another look. Lugo is an Assistant Professor at Tyler School of Art and active as an educator. He has received broad acclaim for his work in the craft community and beyond. In 2019, he was the first ceramic artist to be awarded a distinguished Rome Prize.

[From Acquisition Rationale, September 2021, Jen Padgett]

Person TypeIndividual

Terms