AT FERRIN CONTEMPORARY
Gallery in North Adams, MA | March – April 2023
Available Works
Additional works may be available to acquire, but not listed here.
If interested in lists of all works and series:
INQUIRE FOR MORE
Like An Eternity
Sergei Isupov
2022
porcelain, slip, glaze
13.5 x 10 x 9
Momentary Darkness
Sergei Isupov
2022
porcelain, slip, glaze
13.5 x 10 x 9
Full Moon Addiction
Sergei Isupov
2022
porcelain, slip, glaze
13.5 x 12 x 10
Past & Present Installation
Sergei Isupov
2022
mixed media, wood, metal, paper, paint, ceramic
130 x 80 (133 x 88 framed)
Marriage for the Ages
Sergei Isupov
2022
porcelain, slip, glaze
14 x 10 x 8
Nature is Within Us
Sergei Isupov
2022
porcelain, slip, glaze
12 x 11.5 x 11
ADDITIONAL WORKS
Coffee & Milk
Sergei Isupov
porcelain, slip, glaze
59.5 x 26 x 16
On the Way
Sergei Isupov
2022
porcelain, slip, glaze
58.5 x 38 x 18
On the Way is one of a pair of related, multi-figured, life-sized sculptures produced over several months in 2019-2020. These works strangely, foreshadow the present situation in Ukraine.
“Most of my work depicts human relationships through contrasts and comparisons which makes it easy for anyone to find messages or meanings that may or may not be my original intention. Upon reflection, it is easy to connect the expressions, gestures and movements to current events but in reality, all my work comes out of my life experience – growing up during USSR, experiencing its breakup and the establishment of fifteen independent countries – followed by coming to America as a young artist in the 90’s.”
FIGURES
HEADS
ANDROGYNY
LARGE WORKS & INSTALLATIONS
AVAILABLE FROM PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Complementary | Print & Sculpture | 2000
SERGEI ISUPOV
Sergei Isupov Artist Portrait, 2021, Photo Credit: John Polak
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.
“Coffee and Milk”, 2020, porcelain, slip, glaze, 59.5 x 26 x 16″.
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.”
NEWS
The Clay Studio Presents: Clay & Conversations Online Lectures with Cristina Córdova & Sergei Isupov
Sergei Isupov Interview Featured in the JRA Quarterly Winter 2023
NEW YEAR’S WORKSHOP AT THE CLAY STUDIO: Facial Features with Sergei Isupov
OUR AMERICA/WHOSE AMERICA? Featured in the Berkshire Eagle
Making History: Recent Acquisitions from the Permanent Collection
Sergei Isupov’s Fire Sculpture & TurnPark Summer Event Featured in the Berkshire Eagle
Sergei Isupov: PAST & PRESENT Featured in the Berkshire Eagle
‘Composing Form’ in Stowe Today, July 18, 2019
UPCOMING EVENTS
CERAMICS ARE EVERYWHERE
ARTIST NEWS: SERGEI ISUPOV SUMMER 2018
Summer Events at Ferrin Contemporary & Project Art 2018
WORKSHOPS
We are pleased to be launching a new series of digital workshops
through Project Art 01026.com, with Sergei Isupov.
Workshop dates and more information can be found on
SERGEI ISUPOV
EXHIBITIONS
PAST & PRESENT
2022 Solo Exhibition | Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
CURRENT + RECENT
FIGURING SPACE | The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
The Clay Studio | Philadelphia, PA
January 12, 2023 – April 16, 2023
- Sergei Isupov: PROXIMAL DUALITY
- 2022 INTERNATIONAL CERAMIC ART FAIR (ICAF)
- HEY! LE DESSIN
- ART MACAO: Macao International Art Biennale 2021
- ABOUT FACE: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture
- COOL CLAY: Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Ceramics | Crocker Art Museum
- COMPOSING FORM | Helen Day Art Center
- SURREAL PROMENADE: Sergei Isupov at Russian Museum of Art, Minneapolis, MN
- DIRECTIONS: Sergei Isupov
- ALICE IN WONDERLAND
- SERGEI ISUPOV: Selections from Hidden Messages
- SERGEI ISUPOV: The Rising
- RE—Reanimate, Repair, Mend and Meld
- MENDED WAYS | The Art of Inventive Repair
- SERGEI ISUPOV: Head On
- SERGEI ISUPOV at Kasher | Potamkin
- NCECA 2015 Conference: “Lively Experiments”
- EVERYTHING IS ALL WHITE: The New Year Show
- A CLAY BESTIARY
- PROMENADE: New Work by Sergei Isupov
- HERE AND THERE
- JOHN MICHAEL KOHLER ARTS CENTER 40th ANNIVERSARY
- RAM COLLECTION FOCUS: Sergei Isupov
- SERGEI ISUPOV: Call of the Wild
- INCITEFUL CLAY
- BODY & SOUL
- CLAY BODIES: A Group Exhibition of Figural Ceramic Sculpture
- ANIMAL STORIES
- EXPOSED: Heads, Busts & Nudes
- SERGEI ISUPOV: Hidden Messages
PUBLICATIONS
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.
- Catalog release: November 1, 2022.
- 26-page, full-color catalog
- Installation Images & Artwork Highlights
- Exhibition Release, Show Statements, & Artist Bio-CV
The Clay Studio: Figuring Space Exhibition Catalog
Figuring Space Exhibition Catalog The Clay Studio: Figuring Space Publication Date: January 2023. This catalog features highlights on the artists in the exhibition and includes commentary by Jennifer Zwilling, Curator & Director of Artistic Programs at TCS, and Dr. Kelli Morgan, who are working together to make Figuring Space relevant to our audiences and the art historicalContinue reading →
Mastering Sculpture: The Figure in Clay
Mastering Sculpture: The Figure in Clay Explore the human form in-depth, from concept sketches and armatures to detailed instructions for constructing legs, torso, arms, hands, and head from clay. In Mastering Sculpture: The Figure in Clay, renowned sculptor and instructor Cristina Córdova teaches everything you need to know to replicate the full human figure usingContinue reading →
Sergei Isupov: PAST & PRESENT Exhibition Catalog
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 sinceContinue reading →
About Face: Contemporary Ceramic Scultpure Catalog
About Face: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture About Face: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture This catalog features a foreword by Director Angie Dodson and two essays: one by Glenn Adamson, an expert in craft, ceramic, and contemporary art, and one by MMFA Curator of Art Jennifer Jankauskas, Ph.D. The exhibition catalog also includes color photography of select works inContinue reading →
RAM COLLECTION FOCUS: Sergei Isupov
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION February 23 - June 8, 2014 Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI A mid-career retrospective for an innovative artist who has pushed the possibilities of clay by combining two-dimensional narrative with three-dimensional ceramic form. Isupov explores the human condition. His vocabulary includes human beings and animals, gender, identity, and relationship issues, autobiography, artContinue reading →
EXPOSED: Heads, Busts, and Nudes figural ceramic sculpture from 1970 to the present
EXPOSED: Heads, Busts, and Nudes figural ceramic sculpture from 1970 to the present Work by 25 contemporary artists “working in clay and for whom the figure has been a rich and enduring motif.” Catalog includes work from the exhibit at Ferrin Contemporary as well as pieces available from private collections and artist studios. Introduction byContinue reading →
Sergei Isupov: 1996-2006
Sergei Isupov, "Ring of Fire", 2004, porcelain, 20 x 10 x 8". Sergei Isupov: 1996-2006 Published in 2006 by Ferrin Gallery, Lenox, MA This visual survey marks the tenth anniversary of the working relationship between the artist and Ferrin Gallery. Features works from 1996–2006 with short biographical essay and curriculum vitae. Sergei Isupov Catalog 1996-2006Continue reading →
Sergei Isupov: Androgyny
Sergei Isupov, "Say Nothing", 2008, stoneware, stain, glaze, 33 x 16 x 11". Sergei Isupov: Androgyny Published in 2009 by Mesa Contemporary Arts Center, Mesa AZ • Essay by Sonya Bekkerman, Senior Vice President, Russian Art, Sotheby’s • Introduction by Patty Haberman, Curator, Mesa Contemporary Arts • Project Summary by Leslie Ferrin, Director, Ferrin GalleryContinue reading →
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