Horacio Rodriguez is an artist and educator originally from Houston, Texas. After spending the summers in high school wandering the streets of Houston'sMuseum district and taking classes at the Glassell School of Art, he dedicated himself to a career in the arts by majoring first in photography before finding his true passion: ceramics and sculpture.


After graduating from the University of Redlands in California, Horacio spent time traveling throughout Latin America and the Caribbean; immersing himself in the culture, language, and food of his ancestors. The following decade was spent teaching art, digital graphics, and ceramics at Chavez High School on the East side of Houston; working primarily with the immigrant communities that had inspired him during his travels.


In 2010, a travel fellowship studying Ceramics in Japan changed the trajectory of his life and art. With a renewed passion, he began creating a new body of work fusing digitally manipulated imagery and text with clay. In 2013 he began working on a Masters of Fine Arts and teaching at Montana State University. After graduating with an MFA in Ceramics in 2016, he received the Morales Teaching Fellowship from the University of Utah and moved to Salt Lake City to teach and further expand his studio practice. Horacio says about his work, "My work is about the many borders I have crossed in my life. I carry many of these borders with me in my memories and produce work about these physical and psychological borders. As a product of multiple cultures and identities, my art is used as a vehicle to explore the creation of my personal narrative within the hybrid cultures of the borderlands". Horacio has shown his work extensively; He recently won best of show in the international exhibition, Clay on the Wall, sponsored by Texas Tech University and displayed at the LH Underwood Center for the Arts. He was also recently included in Contemporary Clay, which was displayed at the Western Colorado Center for the Arts as well as Site Lines, The University of Utah’s Art Department faculty show at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Recently, Horacio completed his 3-year fellowship at The University of Utah which culminated in his latest body of work entitled, (Un)Invited Collaborations with my Ancestors at Finch Lane Gallery in Salt Lake City, Utah. In October of 2019, he brought his political work to rural Utah and had a solo show entitled, Subversive Souvenirs at Granary Arts in Ephraim. Horacio is passionate about contributing to Salt Lake City’s Art community and supporting diversity in the arts. He is on the Board of Directors for Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts (MICA) as their curator and began curating their Art shows at Sugar Space Arts Warehouse, a cultural hub on the West Side of Salt Lake City. He also co-curated the Salt Lake City iteration of Looking for America, a six-city Art show focusing on immigration and diverse perspectives, and was displayed at the downtown Salt Lake City public library.


Currently, Horacio is teaching Ceramics at Alta High School, finishing his artist’s residency at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Arts, and is busy preparing for his upcoming solo show at UMOCA, which is scheduled to open in February of 2021. Horacio is also a current Projecting all Voices Fellow at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for the Arts where he is

focusing on curating diverse and underrepresented voices in the arts.