The exhibition De la terra al Cel (From Earth to Heaven), by Mallorcan ceramic artist Joan Pere Català Roig, can be visited from this Friday, 11 September, at the chapel of Centre Cultural la Misericòrdia in Palma. The exhibition will remain open until 6 March 2027 and forms part of the Biennal B programme.
Palma-born artist Joan Pere Català Roig accompanies the Vice-President of the Consell de Mallorca and Councillor for Culture and Heritage, Antònia Roca, during her visit to the exhibition De la terra al Cel. Photo: Consell de Mallorca.
Curated by Luis Juan de Sentmenat García Ruiz, the Català Roig exhibition in Palma brings together a selection of works offering an insight into the career of one of the leading names in contemporary ceramics in Mallorca. The exhibition also forms part of the Consell de Mallorca‘s cultural programme for Diada de Mallorca and the 30th anniversary of Nit de l’Art.
Time and fire as part of the creative process
The exhibition explores an approach to ceramics in which the process is just as important as the finished piece. Català Roig works in close connection with clay and glaze and emphasises the time required for each work, from the potter’s wheel to firing.
Fire plays a fundamental role: it alters colours, surfaces and forms, turning each firing into an active part of the creative process. His pieces feature refined forms stripped of ornamentation and also reflect the influence of different Eastern ceramic traditions.
This approach incorporates a spiritual dimension based on simplicity, restraint and observation. Ceramics therefore emerge not merely as finished objects, but as the result of a process involving craftsmanship, materials, time and elements that the artist himself cannot fully control.
Català Roig, a career closely linked to ceramics in Mallorca
Born in Palma in 1973, Joan Pere Català Roig began working with ceramics at his family’s Es Retall workshop. In 1994, he began studying at the Escola d’Art de Palma and has subsequently combined artistic creation, ceramic production and teaching. From 2012 to 2020, he directed the Escola Municipal de Ceràmica de Marratxí.
His notable projects include the reproduction of 4,000 tiles for the restoration of the bell tower of the Cartuja de Valldemossa, the mosaic for the fountain in Palma’s Plaça de la Reina and the restoration of Lluís Castaldo’s mural in Parc de la Quarantena.
In 2022, he presented Cambra de combustió (Combustion Chamber) at Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani, a project developed over four years with artist Albert Pinya that established a dialogue between painting and ceramics. His career also includes exhibitions and projects in London, Madrid and Milan.
Three other exhibitions at La Misericòrdia for Nit de l’Art
La Misericòrdia’s programme is completed by three Art Palma Contemporani exhibitions installed in the Pati de les Dones (Women’s Courtyard) for Nit de l’Art. Presented by a66Gallery and CCA Andratx, they bring together contemporary sculpture, installation and painting.
At the centre of the courtyard is The Last Nomad, a sculpture by Alejandro Monge, from a66Gallery. The work uses the human figure and a motorcycle to reflect on how technology is transforming our relationship with our surroundings and on the tension between new possibilities for connection and isolation.
Room 77 hosts Nuevo orden (New Order), by Nieves Guri and Marcos Juncal, also from a66Gallery. Guri begins with paintings on canvas that she tears apart and reconstructs to create new compositions, while Juncal works with found materials and objects that he transforms through his sculptural practice. The exhibition establishes a dialogue between the two processes through the transformation of matter.
The same space also hosts States of Matter, States of Mind, by Anna Belén, from CCA Andratx. The German painter takes the Gedankenexperiment, or “thought experiment”, as her starting point, a reasoning tool used in philosophy and physics to explore hypotheses before testing them against the real world.
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