How Jose Solon Perfecto’s monk-like hermitage and religious devotion to the craft are deepening his art of ‘terroir ceramics’

“I liken the deli to the hermitage of a wizard, whom knights seek out before their quests to bring good fortune, to find clarity, and to get closer to the truth with magical items that light the way on roads riddled with darkness and mischief,” Solon Perfecto shares. With him as “The Hermit” in the exhibition’s narrative, the artist forged objects that resemble amulets and talismans, carrying an aesthetic that is true to their materiality yet also showcases striking visuals.

“I decided to create works that are in alchemy with the materials,” explains Solon Perfecto. “I formed the clay, then fired them facing down and sideways on top of shells to let the volatile glazes move and add to the silhouette of the works. Each of the pieces in this collection features a complexity in the glaze to allow a continuous visual exploration of the work.”

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The artist traces his deep relationship and ongoing conversation with clay since he was eight. But it was only after graduating from university and landing a job at Tabacalera Incorporada, Asia’s oldest cigar company, that he discovered a similarity and common language between clay and tobacco leaf.

“This is where I related the language of wine to the processes of both traditional Eastern pottery and Western traditional cigar making. The company gave me a lot of room to grow, so I stayed there for over six years before moving to the province to pursue my art full-time,” recalls Solon Perfecto.

He formally learned the art of pottery from the Pettyjohns’ pottery school in 1997 at the Madrigal Arts Center. Since then, he has channelled storytelling, myth-making, and chronicling in ceramic art. Asked about his influential mentors, the artist easily answered Jon Pettyjohn, whose mentorship transcends being a pottery teacher as the latter has been generous in sharing his taste in music, his worldview, the family values he treasures, and his opinions on politics and traditions.

“In the craft of making pottery, there is so much technique a teacher can impart, such as with an aesthetic they can be dogmatic about, and so it really is up to the student as to how much that informs his own work,” the artist says. “My early works do tend to be derivative of Jon’s pottery, but that was surely the intention. In the last ten years, I went into my own journey as an artist, and the evolution since has created a body of work reflecting my own colourful life.”

Since joining the group exhibition Trial by Fire in 2001 at the Glorietta Art Space in Makati City and the 2013 Salu-Salo exhibition at J Gallery, Taguig City, after a long hiatus, Solon Perfecto continued honing his craft. Since 2020, he has become more actively involved in exhibiting his works, including participating in the online iteration of Art in the Park in 2021 and mounting solo exhibitions via his website. He has also participated in several group exhibitions in renowned spaces in the local art scene, including the Eskinita Gallery, Tahanan Pottery Shop, and Galerie Stephanie. In 2021, he mounted his first solo exhibition at NOOD New Form Art House in La Union, followed by the well-received Etudes in Survival exhibition at Aphro Living in 2023.

Solon Perfecto is known for his abstract expressionist approach to his wild clay and ash formulations, which are based on materials sourced from his La Union studio’s immediate environment—rice fields, mountains, rivers, and the coast.

“My ceramic studio is at the foot of a mountain covered in wild bamboo, one kilometre away from the coast,” he describes. “The ancient methods of foraging and processing materials from one’s locale are mostly credited to very famous Japanese pottery towns with over 10 or more generations of mastery under their belts. I believe there is a virtue in doing such a tedious and slow method of turning natural material into high-quality clays and glazes. These processes of foraging, crushing, mixing, blending, and ageing usually take months and produce a relatively low yield unique to the season and the year. Clays can somewhat be uniform as the material is millions of years old, but I tend to explore the riverbeds, fields, and other sites in search of new material to inform a body of work,” he explains.

The artist also painted some of his pieces for the Perfecto Deli exhibition, portraying his expressionistic take on the nature and rural scenes surrounding his studio.

“Chronicling my life through what I see from the window of my studio is all too natural. Sometimes, they are scenes from the sea as I surf right when the first light of morning breaks or from a fleeting image I capture from the side of my eye driving to and fro along the MacArthur Highway,” Solon Perfecto says.

“The artist is not only meant to immortalise beauty but also to inspire adventure. The Deli is where those on a quest can go to procure magical objects. They can be for fortune, protection, devotion, or to help distinguish truth from lies. The truth is, we are all on a quest, and sometimes, we need these amulets to strengthen our resolve,” he continues.

Both sharing a love for heritage and the warmth of provincial living, curator Lopez-Vito Bucoy and exhibiting artist Solon Perfecto emphasised bringing out the magic realist atmosphere that the pieces exude.

The curator incorporated items from his private collection into the show, such as a Suzani tapestry from Jodphur, India, that accentuated the show’s colour palette. Meanwhile, an antique sakang table highlighted the folkloric character that Solon Perfecto’s ceramics bring into the room. He also included a vintage horse saddle mirror from India, a framed Ivatan vakul from Batanes, an antique pottery lamp, and a Japanese nude painting.

Solon Perfecto named the pieces for the show after certain subjects of oral traditions and beliefs, such as the Nazar, Buddha, and the dwarf-like figures of the Knockturnal Knight series. The collection demonstrates how spirituality was deeply ingrained in his upbringing.

“The oral traditions that lie within my own family are still being passed on, and so there really are some old traditions and beliefs that find their way into our lives from who knows how many generations ago. The Philippine religious experience of the Creator archetypes and animism seems to live harmoniously. It works, doesn’t it?” he says.

Ultimately, Solon Perfecto hopes to articulate through his pieces the millennia-old stories that clay has to share. “The language clay speaks is ancient, and the stories it tells are in the memories of the forms the artist makes,” he says. With works ranging from traditional pottery to contemporary sculptures, Solon Perfecto asserts that the universality of the three-dimensional form needs no words but must be experienced through the senses.

“I value my solitude and the almost insular nature of my studio. This is so important for me to be able to dig deep into my own life and to manifest and create works that are true to me and authentic to my experience. The human experience is such a shared hodgepodge of emotions, and art is a beacon of light to help souls navigate it,” he concludes.

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