Paul Henry Devoti

ATLANTIS STUDIO
San Juan de Oriente, Nicaragua

Paul Henry Devoti

I arrived in San Juan de Oriente in September 1995 as a Peace Corps volunteer. I am still here.

Rooted in two thousand years of cultural history

What I found was a village carrying a tradition almost nobody had written down. The Nicoyan heritage of Pacific Nicaragua — Gran Nicoya — has been worked in clay for two thousand years, and in this village it has been practised without interruption, passed from hand to hand rather than through books.

Understanding that tradition became the work of my life. It is the foundation of everything Atlantis Studio makes.

My Process

Every Atlantis sculpture begins with the same Gran Nicoya materials that have been worked here for more than a thousand years:

  • Local dug clay
  • Sourced slip clay
  • Burnished slip color
  • Etching and carving back down through those layers to the clay beneath

Enhanced slip colors and my own application techniques bring innovation to that palette while the traditional methods stay exactly as they were.

And here is the irony: it is the native no-glaze method that opens the door to the contemporary layer. Because nothing seals the surface, I can come back after the firing and hand-paint modern color directly into the exposed clay.

That combination of tradition and contemporary color, and the craftsmanship applied at every step, is what makes an Atlantis sculpture a one-of-a-kind object.

Paul Henry Devoti loading a carved Atlantis vessel into the kiln at his studio in San Juan de Oriente, Nicaragua
Atlantis ceramic art sculptures are created through an intense yet delicate journey — traditional methods and materials, enhanced with creative and modern innovation. It is my pleasure to present Atlantis Ceramic Art Sculptures to the world.

Completely handcrafted

Every piece is designed and executed by me and my team, in my studio and home in San Juan de Oriente. Nothing is cast, duplicated or reproduced. No two are alike, and none is ever made twice.

Collectors and collections

Discerning collectors of both traditional and contemporary work find excitement and importance in collecting Atlantis pieces — rare cultural values and traditional techniques carried forward with redefined color and modern clay work.

The work has won numerous art show awards and entered museum collections, including acquisitions by the Tampa Contemporary Museum of Art and institutions at North Carolina State University.

Culture · Creativity · Craftsmanship