ABOUT

Cristóbal Küpfer (Santiago, Chile) is a Chilean-Swiss artist working primarily with sculptural ceramics. With a background in finance and a self-taught approach, he has shaped his practice through intuition, persistence, and a deep desire for material and emotional connection. Over time, he has expanded his learning through national and international workshops, and is currently pursuing a Diploma in Art Studies at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

His work explores identity, perception, and the ways we connect with others and with ourselves. He is particularly interested in how surface, form, and materiality reveal what lies beneath appearances in a society increasingly driven by spectacle.

Cristóbal lives and works in Santiago.

STATEMENT

I create forms that exist in the space between suggestion and certainty. I’m drawn to the tension between what we show and what remains underneath, and to the quiet complexity of how we perceive and connect with others.

My work responds to a world where appearances often outweigh essence. As Guy Debord wrote, we live through “the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing.” I work with clay to resist that drift—not through grand narratives, but through form, gesture, and surface. I search for a slower rhythm, one that invites presence, reflection, and feeling.

I think perception is not neutral. How we read an image, an object, a person—says as much about us as it does about what we’re looking at. That space between seeing and being seen is charged with vulnerability. It's also where connection becomes possible.

I’m interested in the emotional threads that tie us together—those small, often overlooked moments of contact, tension, care or distance. My practice doesn’t aim to explain, but to hold space: for doubt and tenderness, for intimacy and recognition—for everything that reminds us that we are, above all, human.

EDUCATION

2025 Diplomado en Estudios en Artes (ongoing) - Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago, Chile.

2022 Ingeniería Comercial - Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile.

WORKSHOPS

2025 Taller de Cerámica Avanzado (ongoing) - Biophilia, Santiago, Chile.

2025 Clay Ground Workshops - Dynamo, Zürich, Switzerland.

2025 Analog Photography Crashkurs - Dynamo, Zürich, Switzerland.

2024 Ceramics Intensive Course - Roka, Zürich, Switzerland.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

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ART FAIRS

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AWARDS

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