Making History: Recent Acquisitions from the Permanent Collection

Summer 2022 – Spring 2023

Fuller Craft Museum
455 Oak Street
Brockton, MA

Featuring work by Sergei Isupov & Kadri Pärnamets

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Making History: Recent Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection features objects that have been acquired by Fuller Craft Museum since December 2020. Twenty artworks are included in the exhibition, representing a range of materials, techniques, subjects, and artistic innovations. Ceramic sculptures, basketry forms, hand-stitched textiles, blown glass objects and more illustrate the technical and expressive accomplishments of today’s craft artists.

Several of the works explore themes of identity and belonging, while others investigate social justice themes of racism, inequity, and political strife. Additional critical global issues being addressed include COVID-19 and the fragile balance between humans and the natural world. Many of the featured artists honor the traditions of craft, illustrating creative excellence that results from accumulated knowledge of their chosen medium, exceptional material intelligence, and highly developed handskills.

Sergei Isupov/Kadri Parnamets

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

SERGEI ISUPOV

Sergei Isupov is an Estonian-American sculptor internationally known for his highly detailed, narrative works. Isupov explores painterly figure-ground relationships, creating surreal sculptures with a complex artistic vocabulary that combines two- and three-dimensional narratives and animal/human hybrids. He works in ceramics using traditional hand-building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form with narrative painting using colored stains highlighted with clear glaze.

Isupov has a long international resume with work included in numerous collections and exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Australia, Museum Angewandte in Kunst, Germany, and in the US at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Crocker Art Museum, Everson Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Museum of Arts and Design, Museum of Fine Arts–Boston, Museum of Fine Arts–Houston, Mint Museum of Art, and Racine Art Museum. In 2017, his solo exhibition at The Erie Art Museum presented selected works in a 20-year career survey titled Hidden Messages, followed by Surreal Promenade, another survey solo in 2019 at the Russian Museum of Art in Minnesota.

KADRI PÄRNAMETS

Kadri Pärnamets works in porcelain using traditional hand building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form with narrative painting. Her biomorphic, organic forms provide a means to convey personal interests ranging from the fragile, natural environment to female identity. Focusing on gesture and expression, she selects known classics of female beauty by painters from the European Renaissance and Impressionist eras, like Lucas Cranach the Elder and Edouard Manet. Pärnamets has taught in the Estonian Art Academy and is a member of the Asuurkeraamika Studio, Estonian Artists Association, and Estonian Ceramist Association.

Pärnamets’ work has been shown internationally at Ferrin Contemporary, (North Adams, MA), the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, (Tallinn, Estonia), and at the International Tea Trade Expo, (Shanghai, China). Since 1996, she has participated in symposiums in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Switzerland, USA, Norway, and Hungary. In Pärnamets graduated from the Art Institute of Tallinn, Estonia in 1994 with a BA/MFA in Ceramics. Dividing her time between Estonia and USA, her primary studio is the USA at Project Art in Cummington, MA. She is represented by Ferrin Contemporary.