Luis Bermudez

Luis Bermudez worked in sculpture for more than forty years with a focus on ceramics; he was a masterful craftsman who employed a breadth of techniques, especially mold making and casting, to create unique bodies of work. He spent his childhood between Los Angeles and parts of western Mexico, where he had family, and evidence of the landscape and history of both places recurs in his works. Through his education and extensive travels, Bermudez was attuned to the history of ceramics across global cultural contexts with particular attention to Mesoamerican iconography, architecture, and spiritual practice. This visual language is punctuated by the presence of personal references and in the recurrence of particular forms such as snakes, lightning bolts, and certain vessel types that we can see across various series. 

Luis Bermudez (b. 1953, Los Angeles; d. 2021, Los Angeles) received a BA and an MA from California State University, Northridge, in 1976 and 1978, respectively, and an MFA from UCLA in 1980. His work has appeared in solo exhibitions at Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, Ojai, California (2010–11); American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, California (2009); Charles and Dorothy Clark Gallery, University of Texas–Pan American, Edinburg (2005); and Garth Clark Gallery, Los Angeles (1986). Group exhibitions include those at American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona (2012, 2010, 2007); Fine Arts Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) (2010, 2008, 2007); Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, Ojai (2010, 2006); and Schneider Museum of Art, Southern Oregon University, Ashland (2006). Bermudez received a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship Grant (1988). He taught for more than forty years at colleges and universities in Southern California and elsewhere, including for nearly twenty years at CSULA.