Nazaré Feliciano was born in a small town in Portugal, and studied art in the United States. She’s has been a professor of art in ceramics and sculpture at Palm Beach State College / Eissey Campus since 2001, and has established herself as a fine artist / ceramicist, with numerous awards and solo exhibitions.

Having grown up surrounded by beautifully painted terracotta tiles, known as “Azulejos” in Portugal, Nazaré creates art works using terracotta and porcelain. Her most intricate pieces are her series of porcelain panels that are flexible and can be handled similarly to a blanket, made of pieces of hollow clay, strung together with steel metal, to create a flexible ceramic form. These quilt-like panels show images and text with a sepia tone coloration. She explains: “Usually I work in series. Some of my art work may be quite different from a previous work. However, one of the consistencies in my pieces is that they are a sum of parts, many pieces creating a whole. I create these pieces aiming to achieve a sensory response: cold, warm, soft, rough, beyond a visual and intellectual perception.”

Nazaré earned a bachelor’s degree at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, and a BFA from Florida Atlantic University. She received her master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Fine arts Studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and completed her Ph.D. in Comparative Studies of Fine and Performing Arts, at FAU, on May 2014, with a dissertation, “Dance Bodily Knowledge Transferred to Sculpture,” that focuses on the sculptural art work of Mary Frank, a contemporary American artist, who conveys a unique sense of movement in her sculptures.

Nazaré’s art work is in museums and private collections, and has been published in “Contemporary Ceramics” a book by Susan Peterson, “Ceramic Tile Art” a book by Deborah Goletz, and, in the International Ceramic magazine--Ceramic Art and Perception, the Ceramics Monthly magazine, and The Arts of the Times magazine.