SERGEI ISUPOV

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BIO

ABOUT

Estonian-American, b. 1963 Stavropole, USSR,
lives and works between Cummington, MA, USA and Tallinn, Estonia

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 e, another survey solo in 2019 at the Russian Museum of Art in Minnesota.

ON HIS WORK

Often called an erotic Surrealist for his daring representations of sexuality, relationships, and human encounter, Isupov takes narrative subject matter and merges it with ceramic sculptural form. Drawing on personal experience, and human observation, he creates works that integrate autobiography with universal narrative.

He states, “Everything that surrounds and excites me is automatically processed and transformed into…an artwork. […] The essence of my work is not in the medium or the creative process, but in the human beings and their incredible diversity. When I think of myself and my works, I’m not sure I create them, perhaps they create me.”

While the robust, and racially distinct facial traits make each sculpture unique, they also make the body of work capable of representing universal experiences. The bold color palette, heavily tattooed faces, and textured surfaces relate these works to the aesthetics of traditional Russian art, as well as to contemporary styles of illustration.

“My work portrays characters placed in situations that are drawn from my imagination but based on my life experiences.  My art works capture a composite of fleeting moments, hand gestures, eye movements that follow and reveal the sentiments expressed.  These details are all derived from actual observations but are gathered or collected over my lifetime.  Through the drawn images and sculpted forms, I capture faces, body types and use symbolic elements to compose, in the same way as you might create a collage.  These ideas drift and migrate throughout my work without direct regard to specific individuals, chronology or geography.  Universalism is implied and personal interpretation expected.   Through my work I get to report about and explore human encounters, comment on the relationships between man and woman, and eventually their sexual union that leads to the final outcome – the passing on of DNA which is the ultimate collection – a combined set of genes and a new life, represented in the child.”

ANDROGYNY SERIES

HEADS & BUSTS

FIGURATIVE WORKS

HUMANIMAL SERIES

SERGEI ISUPOV: ALLIANCES Exhibition Catalog

Isupov’s artworks form alliances with one another as they move between media, explore scale, and are presented in curated exhibitions. Recent opportunities to create public works like his fire sculpture production and performances, along with solo exhibitions that show the full scope of Isupov’s creative versatility and process, have led to new works on paper, prints and wall installations combining ceramics with other materials.

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VIEW THE EXHIBITION

Sergei Isupov: PAST & PRESENT Exhibition Catalog

Ferrin Contemporary is proud to present new works from internationally renowned sculptor Sergei Isupov. Sergei Isupov: PAST & PRESENT features new ceramic sculptures presented with both a multi-dimensional, mixed-media wall installation and independent pedestal-based works. Isupov and Ferrin Contemporary have been working together and presenting exhibitions internationally since 1996 and this will be the artist’s third solo show in our North Adams gallery location.

Collection Focus: Sergei Isupov at RAM

$5.00

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