Juan Miguel Santiago was born in 1973 in Manila, Philippines. He currently lives in Oakland, California. Santiago received his MFA in Ceramic Art from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2004, and BFA in Ceramic Art from the California College of the Arts in 2000. After earning his graduate degree in New York, Santiago continued his studio practice in Bangkok, Thailand where he lived for two years. His studio practice combined teaching techniques in ceramics with design and industry programs within universities in Bangkok.

Santiago now teaches ceramic art at Chabot College in Hayward and California College of the Arts in Oakland as well as continuing his studio practice at the DOME in Oakland, California.

My intention is that the viewer intuits a feeling of absoluteness from my sculpture. The work raises more questions than answers. Of course, the objects I make exist simply because they do. However, can these objects transform as I create different situations for them? With this question in mind, I start thinking about the exploration of materials as well as symbolism. I begin to look at my work with a new perspective. I physically take the work out the studio and into an empty space. At that point, there is a chance for the work to establish a new or added meaning as the objects take on a symbolic role in relation to each other and the space they inhabit. I act on feeling more than knowing. There is a mystery in what I feel that does not need to be resolved but needs to be expressed.