Eddie Dominguez: Garden of Eden

This exhibition, which includes several new sculptures never before on public view, debuts Eddie Dominguez and his oeuvre to the Chattahoochee Valley. The youngest of eight children, Eddie Dominguez grew up in Tucumcari, New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Amarillo on historic Route 66. He came to national prominence in the mid-1980s for clay pieces like Anton’s Flowers II, hybrid works comprised of highly stylized dishes that also stack into sculptural forms. These accolades have led major institutions, like the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; the Museum of Arts & Design, New York; and the Arizona State University Art Museum Ceramics Research Center, Tempe, to collect his work.

In his oeuvre, the artist frequently references his home state’s vegetation, landforms, weather, and Hispano-Catholic culture. Childhood influences also include a plethora of creative female relatives––a mother who sewed, an aunt who crocheted––and a brother who ran an upholstery shop. The dual nature of Dominguez’s objects, which inhabit the gray area between utility and art for art’s sake, reflects his personal experience as a New Mexican who studied ceramics in the Anglodominated East: whether we see “art” or “craft,” local Hispano or melting pot American depends completely on the immediate context. Dominguez has taught at the University of Nebraska– Lincoln since 1998.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website