Traditionally undervalued as a final material in the Western sculptural tradition, clay is privileged in Jorge Vieira's production, reflecting his interest both in the practices and imagery of Portuguese handicrafts and in the arts of other ancient cultures. Simultaneously, and within the avant-garde tradition of the early twentieth century, the exploration of ceramic techniques and references to primitive arts and other civilizational contexts expressed the possibility of refusing academicism - being, in a certain way, an instrument of social and cultural criticism or commentary.

Vieira's works in terracotta are the result of a conscious aesthetic intention that valorises the primordial and the sensorial. His formal research, of surrealist affiliation, is based on the organic representation of the human body, which progressively transforms and metamorphoses into strange beings. In this work, the form develops schematically around a head that is still recognisable despite the unusual displacement of the eyes, and the three tentacular arms that rise up and give continuity to the long neck. The abstract synthesis of the volumes and the balanced relation between the various elements, give the piece a spheroid structure marked by open/closed spaces. It can be detected in it a subversion of the classic form of the "bust". The surface treatment is marked by the polychromy conferred by the engobes, an ancient technique that consists of painting colour on the clay at a certain moment of drying, then taking it to the kiln to be baked. These elements introduce graphic and rhythmic markings that evoke an ancestral vocabulary.