Project Type: 2025

American Scenery and Souvenirs: Transferware by Paul Scott

American Scenery and Souvenirs: Transferware by Paul Scott

Lightner Museum
St. Augustine, FL

April 24, 2025 – October 27, 2025

NEW AMERICAN SCENERY: The Art of Paul Scott: Paul Scott’s New American Scenery will open at its 7th tour location on April 24th, 2025. The exhibition at the Lightner Museum marks the artist’s fifth solo show in the US, spanning 2019 to 2025.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


In American Scenery and Souvenirs British artist Paul Scott reanimates historical transferware to create new works depicting scenes from contemporary American life. 

In the nineteenth century, blue-and-white printed transferware plates portraying images of American scenery, cities, and their significant landmarks were mass-produced by potteries in Staffordshire, England for export to the US. By the turn of the twentieth century these works became tremendously popular collectibles, cherished by the American middle class as souvenirs of travel and experience. 

Paul Scott’s current work combines the visual vocabulary and processes of historical transferware with unexpected and incongruous vignettes of life in America today, engaging with themes of globalization, energy consumption, capitalism, social justice, immigration, and the environmental impact of human activity. In American Scenery and Souvenirs, nuclear power plants, decaying urban centers, abandoned industrial sites, wildfires, and border walls intrude amidst the traditionally bucolic landscape. These provocative scenes subvert the picturesque aesthetic traditionally associated with American transferware, challenging the viewer to reconsider the nation’s environmental and social realities. The exhibition presents Scott’s work in dialogue with vintage Rowland & Marsellus transferware from the Lightner Museum collection to showcase Scott’s technical and poignant interventions.

American Scenery and Souvenirs: Transferware by Paul Scott is presented at the Lightner Museum by the Community Foundation for Northeast Florida. Additional support comes from the St. Johns County Tourist Development Council and the St. Johns Cultural Council.

English, b. 1953, Darley Dale, Derbyshire, England
lives and works in Cumbria, UK

Paul Scott is a Cumbrian-based artist with a diverse practice and an international reputation. Creating individual pieces that blur the boundaries between fine art, craft and design, he is well known for research into printed vitreous surfaces, as well as his characteristic blue and white artworks in glazed ceramic.

Scott’s artworks can be found in public collections around the globe – including The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design Norway, the Victoria and Albert Museum London, National Museums Liverpool, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn Art Museum USA. Commissioned work can be found in a number of UK museums as well as public places in the North of England, including Carlisle, Maryport, Gateshead and Newcastle Upon Tyne. He has also completed large-scale works in Hanoi, Vietnam and Guldagergård public sculpture park in Denmark.

A combination of rigorous research, studio practice, curation, writing and commissioned work ensures that his work is continually developing. It is fundamentally concerned with the re-animation of familiar objects, landscape, pattern and a sense of place. He was Professor of Ceramics at Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) from 2011–2018. Scott received his Bachelors of Art Education and Design at Saint Martin’s College and Ph.d at the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design in Manchester, England.

His current research project New American Scenery has been enabled by an Alturas Foundation artist award, Ferrin Contemporary, and funding from Arts Council England. More on New American Scenery, here.

INQUIRE


Additional works may be available to acquire, but not listed here.

If interested in lists of all works and series: Send us a message

Jacqueline Bishop: THE KEEPER OF ALL THE SECRETS | London, UK

Jacqueline Bishop: THE KEEPER OF ALL THE SECRETS | London, UK

The Keeper of All The Secrets (Edition of 3)
2024
digital print on porcelain, gold lustre
12.5″

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


CATALOG


The Keeper of All the Secrets: Jacqueline Bishop’s Ceramic Tea Service Paperback – July 18, 2025

Jacqueline Bishop’s ceramic tea service The Keeper of All The Secrets is a new commission that will go on display in the Queen’s House at Royal Museums Greenwich in early 2025. Featuring the image of the market woman and various plants known to induce abortion, the service is a comment on colonialism, empire and the position of women in society. The figure of the market woman is a well-known symbol of the plantation system, but little has been written on her significance. She performed an illicit resistance to the plantation system, secretly assisting in the regulation of menstrual cycles and illegally terminating unwanted pregnancies, many of which are known to have been the result of rape by enslavers. This book, also featuring new poetry by Bishop and an interview, situates the market woman within the context of Caribbean enslavement and the tea trade. The tea service will be considered alongside other items in the Museum’s collection relating to colonialism and empire and provides a lens through which contemporary debates on the present-day impacts of these issues can be explored.

 

PURCHASE THE CATALOG & LEARN MORE

PROGRAMMING


Workshop: Sips of Wisdom

Celebrating the knowledge of African Caribbean herbs for women’s health

Saturday, March 22, 2025 | 11:30am–1:30pm

This workshop is an introduction to herbal traditions, exploring the history of African Caribbean herbs, their connections to African and Indigenous practices, and their importance for women’s health.

Inspired by artist Jacqueline Bishop’s ‘Keeper of All Secrets’ tea set, the workshop will delve into the theme of the Market Woman and her role in sharing knowledge about herbs.

As part of the session you’ll design and paint your own cup and saucer to take home. The session will include:

  • Discussion and sharing of the uses of African Caribbean herbs.
  • A guided reflection meditation on connecting to inner resilience, empowerment and ancestral knowledge across all lands.
  • Painting a cup and saucer, inspired by the knowledge learnt and shared on the day.

 

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

JOIN THE ACC IN LONDON, ENGLAND WITH JACQUELINE BISHOP

You’re invited to join the American Ceramics Circle for a three day trip to London, Cambridge and Norwich, March 19-21, 2025 to explore collections and current exhibitions.

We begin in London with a welcome reception at E & H Manners gallery on Tuesday the 18th

On Wednesday we will travel by train to Norwich where we will visit Norwich Castle Museum and the Sainsbury Centre. Friday, we will travel again by train to Cambridge where we will visit the Fitzwilliam Museum and Kettle’s Yard.

Thursday, we are invited to join the English Ceramic Circle at the Victoria & Albert Museum for a Wedgwood study day . We will meet with ceramic historian Caroline McCraffrey Howarth who will share her research on the important nineteenth-century collector Lady Charlotte Schreiber and her majestic donation of 18th-century ceramics to the V&A. We also have the opportunity to meet with V&A curator Alun Graves and visit the museum’s studio pottery collection.That evening, we are invited to attend the launch and reception of Jacqueline Bishop’s “Keeper of All The Secrets” at the Queen’s House in Greenwich.

Organized by Leslie Ferrin, Christina Prescott-Walker and Rachel Gotlieb

Fee: $45 for members, $60 for guests

All travel, meals, entry fees and hotel costs are “a la carte” – to be paid directly by attendees. The organizers will negotiate group entries, and make detailed recommendations for travel and hotels as required.

 

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PORCELAIN LOVE LETTERS: The Art of Mara Superior

PORCELAIN LOVE LETTERS: The Art of Mara Superior

UPCOMING: Opening May, 2025


Curated by Kory Rogers
Francie and John Downing Senior Curator of American Art

SHELBURNE MUSEUM
Shelburne, VT

Ceramics Gallery, Variety Unit

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


Porcelain Love Letters: The Art of Mara Superior

Mara Superior’s porcelain art combines intricate painted imagery and sculptural forms to explore themes of art history, domesticity, and environmentalism. Often described as “love letters to the world,” Superior’s works invite viewers to engage with their timeless beauty and layered narratives. 

Opening May 10, 2025

SHELBURNE MUSEUM
6000 Shelburne Road
PO Box 10
Shelburne, VT

ARTWORKS


Preview

Homes & Gardens

The Planet

PROGRAMMING


Webinar: Artistic Eye – Seeing the World through Mara Superior’s Ceramic Art

Tuesday, April 8, 2025
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Zoom
Mara Superior, acclaimed ceramic artist known for blending delicate ceramic pieces with sharp social commentary, joins curator Kory Rogers for an engaging hour-long webinar discussion about her life, her art, and her creative inspirations. Discover how Mara’s passion for art history and world travel shapes her work, how historical subjects inspire contemporary conversations, and how she reimagines traditional forms like teapots into striking 3D sculptures. Don’t miss this exploration of creativity and innovation and learn more about Mara prior to the opening of her 2025 exhibition, Porcelain Love Letters: The Art of Mara Superior.

Join via Zoom on April 8 at 12:00 pm EDT. A live Q & A will close the program.

Free. Advance registration required.

REGISTER HERE

American, b. 1951, New York, NY
lives and works in Williamsburg, MA

Mara Superior is an American visual artist who works in porcelain. Her ceramic high relief platters and sculptural objects reflect the artist’s passion for art history and the decorative arts, and her painterly motifs range from the pleasures of the domestic to serious political and environmental issues as points of departure to comment on contemporary culture and its relationship to history. Superior has received numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Visual Arts Fellowship, the prestigious Guldaggergård Residency in Denmark, and numerous individual artist grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Superior has exhibited at the American Museum of Ceramic Art, (Pomona, CA), Scripps Women’s College, (Claremont, CA), and the Fuller Craft Museum, (Brockton, MA) among many other institutions. Her work can be found in the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, (Washington, DC), the Museum of Arts and Design, (New York, NY), the Peabody Essex Museum, (Salem, MA), Philadelphia Museum of Art, (Philadelphia, PA) the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (Los Angeles, CA), White House Collection of American Craft, (Little Rock, AK). In 2018, through the generous support of the Kohler Foundation, gifts of art by Mara Superior were made to fifteen museums throughout the USA, increasing the public holdings of Superior’s artworks  and including an in depth collection acquired by the Racine Art Museum, (Racine, WI) and shown in 2020 in Collection Focus: Mara Superior. In 2010 she was interviewed for the oral history program of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, (Washington, DC).

Superior studied at the Pratt Institute and Hartford Art School, completing her BFA in painting from the University of Connecticut followed by a MAT in ceramics from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. She is represented by Ferrin Contemporary.

ABOUT THE SHELBURNE MUSEUM


Shelburne Museum is an unparalleled and unique experience of American history, art, and design. Designed to allow visitors the pleasure of discovery and exploration, the Museum includes thirty-nine distinct structures on forty-five acres, each filled with beautiful, fascinating, and whimsical objects. Come play in our gardens and open our many doors. You are welcome here.

Click to Read More HERE

SHELBURNE MUSEUM

6000 Shelburne Road
PO Box 10
Shelburne, VT 05482

INQUIRE


Additional works may be available to acquire, but not listed here.

If interested in lists of all works and series: Send us a message

PAUL SCOTT: Viewing America

PAUL SCOTT: Viewing America

Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati, OH

October 10, 2025 – January 4, 2026

NEW AMERICAN SCENERY: The Art of Paul Scott: Paul Scott’s New American Scenery at the Cincinnati Art Museum will open at its 8th tour location on October 10th, 2025. “PAUL SCOTT: Viewing America” marks the artist’s sixth solo show in the US, spanning 2019 to 2026. 

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


Exhibition Details In Development

In New American Scenery, Scott scrutinizes the American landscape from a contemporary perspective, one that grapples with issues of globalization, energy generation and consumption, capitalism, social justice, immigration, and the human impact on the environment. The images that Scott creates for his ceramics depict unsettling views of nuclear power plants, aging urban centers, abandoned industrial sites, wildfires, and isolating walls. As representations of the American landscape, they suggest a subversion of the picturesque aesthetic—the unpicturesque picturesque—and a new, disturbing norm.

“NAS” includes the following bodies of work, many of which were conceived on location and/or with insights from significant collaborators. Each title below represents a sub-series containing multiple iterations and/or designs: American Cities & Landscapes, Broken Treaties, Energy & Environment, Posy Vases, Race, Indigeneity & Immigration, Samplers, Sampler Jugs, Souvenirs, Views of New York.

English, b. 1953, Darley Dale, Derbyshire, England
lives and works in Cumbria, UK

Paul Scott is a Cumbrian-based artist with a diverse practice and an international reputation. Creating individual pieces that blur the boundaries between fine art, craft and design, he is well known for research into printed vitreous surfaces, as well as his characteristic blue and white artworks in glazed ceramic.

Scott’s artworks can be found in public collections around the globe – including The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design Norway, the Victoria and Albert Museum London, National Museums Liverpool, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn Art Museum USA. Commissioned work can be found in a number of UK museums as well as public places in the North of England, including Carlisle, Maryport, Gateshead and Newcastle Upon Tyne. He has also completed large-scale works in Hanoi, Vietnam and Guldagergård public sculpture park in Denmark.

A combination of rigorous research, studio practice, curation, writing and commissioned work ensures that his work is continually developing. It is fundamentally concerned with the re-animation of familiar objects, landscape, pattern and a sense of place. He was Professor of Ceramics at Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) from 2011–2018. Scott received his Bachelors of Art Education and Design at Saint Martin’s College and Ph.d at the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design in Manchester, England.

His current research project New American Scenery has been enabled by an Alturas Foundation artist award, Ferrin Contemporary, and funding from Arts Council England. More on New American Scenery, here.

INQUIRE


Additional works may be available to acquire, but not listed here.

If interested in lists of all works and series: Send us a message

Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses

Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses

ABOUT THE ARTISTS


b. Shinnecock, 1980
lives and works in Northfield, Minnesota

More on Courtney M. Leonard

FEATURING

“BREACH | Logbook 21 | CONVOKE”
2021
multi-ply birch wood and acrylic, coiled and woven earthenware, coiled micaceous clay, oyster shells
various dimensions
John Polak Photography

b. 1971, Kingston, Jamaica
lives and works in New York, NY

More on Jacqueline Bishop

FEATURING

“Fauna (Tea Service)”
2024
digital print on porcelain, gold lustre, Tea Set with Teapot, Cup, Saucer, Cream Pitcher, Sugar Pot, Rectangular Plate, Oval Plate; Teapot
various dimensions
John Polak Photography

Jacqueline Bishop in: RISE UP | RESISTANCE, REVOLUTION, ABOLITION

Jacqueline Bishop in: RISE UP | RESISTANCE, REVOLUTION, ABOLITION

The Fitzwilliam Museum of Art

Trumpington Street
Cambridge
CB2 1RB

February 21, 2025 through June 1, 2025

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


Discover the multifaceted history of the fight to end transatlantic slavery through the stories of the people, communities and anti-slavery movements who campaigned for abolition in the face of oppression and opposition.

Bringing together historic artworks and objects in conversation with works by contemporary artists, Rise Up explores the battle to abolish the British slave trade and end enslavement between 1750 and 1850, as well as the aftermath, its legacies and the ongoing struggle for equality and social justice today.

Focusing on the individuals whose contributions were vital to the British abolition story, our latest exhibition shines a light on the often-forgotten Black Georgians and Victorians, and commemorates the resistance leaders and revolutionaries across the Caribbean, Europe and the Americas; from Jamaican freedom fighter, Nanny of the Maroons to Nigerian-born, British-based writer and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano.

PROGRAMMING


Lunchtime Lecture | Meet the Artist: Jacqueline Bishop

Price: £10
Date/time: Saturday, March 22, 2025 | 1–2pm
Location: Seminar Room

Join Jacqueline Bishop as she talks about her new work Nana (2024), currently on display in The Fitzwilliam Museum’s Rise Up exhibition. Bishop’s sculptural work celebrates the countless unrecorded Jamaican market women of West African heritage whose skills, knowledge and empowerment ‘exemplify resilience and agency’ and helped ‘shape the legacy of Caribbean and African heritage’.

Jacqueline Bishop is an accomplished writer, academic, and visual artist with exhibitions in Belgium, Morocco, Italy, Cape Verde, Niger, USA, and Jamaica. In addition to her role as Clinical Full Professor at New York University, Jacqueline Bishop was a 2020 Dora Maar/Brown Foundation Fellow in France; 2008-2009 Fulbright Fellow in Morocco; and 2009-2010 UNESCO/Fulbright Fellow in Paris. Bishop has received several awards, including the OCM Bocas Award for her book “The Gymnast & Other Position”, The Canute A. Brodhurst Prize for short story writing, The Arthur Schomburg Award for Excellence in the Humanities from New York University, A James Michener Creative Writing Fellowship, as well as several awards from the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission. Jacqueline’s recent ceramic work consists of brightly colored bone China plates used symbolically in Caribbean homes and explores how they hid the violent legacy of slavery and colonialism in the Atlantic world.

Sergei Isupov: MOMENTS FROM ETERNITY

Sergei Isupov: MOMENTS FROM ETERNITY

District Clay Center

2414 Douglas St NE
Washington, DC

April 25 – May 25, 2025

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


This April, District Clay Center (DCC) is honored to invite you to a solo exhibition and weekend workshop with internationally-renowned artist Sergei Isupov.

Moments from Eternity features a selection of free- standing ceramic sculptures alongside a new wall installation created for the exhibition. FIGURE: Form + Surface, the corresponding workshop, will allow participants to learn the techniques Isupov uses to sculpt these porcelain masterworks.

PROGRAMMING


OPENING RECEPTION

Friday April 25, 6-8 PM
District Clay Center

Join District Clay Center for the opening reception of “Moments from Eternity” ​with Sergei Isupov! Attendees will hear Isupov discuss his work on view.

The reception will take place at 6 PM on April 25 at District Clay Center in central Washington DC. During the reception, Isupov will give an introductory artist talk and discuss his work on view. Following the lunch break on Saturday, Sergei will give an illustrated talk featuring images of his studio practice and feature select works from throughout his career. Both talks will provide context for the techniques students learn during the workshop. The reception and artist talk will be open to the public.

RSVP HERE

Illustrated Artist Talk

Saturday, April 26, 1 PM
District Clay Center

FREE | All Are Welcome

FIGURE: Form + Surface with Sergei Isupov

April 26-27, 2025, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
District Clay Center

In this weekend workshop with internationally renowned artist Sergei Isupov, students will learn how to build form and develop surfaces to create a portrait bust in clay. The workshop begins with a Friday night public gallery reception prior to demonstrations and hands-on instruction on Saturday and Sunday.

Intermediate, Ages 18 year+

$540.00 | $486.00(members)

MORE DETAILS & REGISTRATION 

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.

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Additional works may be available to acquire, but not listed here.

If interested in lists of all works and series: Send us a message

Chris Antemann: An Occasional Craving

Chris Antemann: An Occasional Craving

Chris Antemann: An Occasional Craving


Dixon Gallery & Gardens
4339 Park Ave
Memphis, TN

February 9 – April 6, 2025

Join the ACC at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, TN

March 2-3, 2025

You’re invited to join the American Ceramic Circle for a two-day trip to Memphis, March 2-3, 2025 to explore the Dixon Gallery and Gardens collections and current exhibitions.

LEARN MORE & REGISTER

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


In 2011, American ceramic artist Chris Antemann formed what would become a fruitful partnership with the centuries-old Meissen porcelain manufactory that continues today. With a profound respect for the innovation and artistry of Meissen porcelain, Antemann re-envisions the concept of porcelain figural groupings with a wink of her twenty-first-century eye. Chris’ colorful, imaginative, and often cheeky ceramic sculptures parody the dynamics between men and women, much as they did in the eighteenth century. And while viewers of rococo porcelain figural groupings would have been cognizant of the coded innuendos that abound in the art of that era, Antemann is much more explicit in her representations (and parodies) of human sexuality.

Chris Antemann: An Occasional Craving presents a variety of Antemann’s works, from her early MEISSEN collaborations to more complex dramatic table-top centerpieces produced in her studio in Joseph, OR. Inspired by the Dixon’s own Warda Stevens Stout Collection of Eighteenth-Century German Porcelain, by the vitality of our beautiful gardens, and by the Berthe Morisot painting in our collection, Peasant Girl among Tulips, Antemann is creating a pair of tulipieres specifically for the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. Visitors to the exhibition will be charmed by her sculptures, which walk a fine line between lighthearted and profound, and come away with a deeper understanding of the nuances of historic German porcelain.

EVENTS


ACC at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, TN

You’re invited to join the American Ceramic Circle for a two-day trip to Memphis, March 2-3, 2025 to explore the Dixon Gallery and Gardens collections and current exhibitions. We will also visit the studio of contemporary artist and University of Memphis professor, Kate Roberts, and the private home of renowned collectors of European porcelain.

At the Dixon, we will go behind the scenes on guided tours of the museum and gardens with curators and horticulturists. We will enjoy a special tour with artist Chris Antemann and Julie Pierotti, curator of the solo exhibition, An Occasion to Gather, featuring a site-responsive commission, masterworks produced in her US studio, and selected vignettes produced during her 10-year collaboration with the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory in Germany.

A discounted rate is available for registered attendees.

Registration: $45 for ACC members, $55 for guests + Eventbrite fees; registration includes admission to the Dixon.

Please note that attendees are responsible for their own accommodations, transportation and meals.

Limited to 20.

ABOUT THE DIXON GALLERY & GARDENS

ABOUT THE DIXON’S COLLECTION

LEARN MORE & REGISTER

ABOUT CHRIS ANTEMANN


American
b. 1970 Albany, NY
lives and works between Joseph, OR and Meissen, Germany

Chris Antemann is an American artist known for her frolicking, contemporary feminist parodies of 18th century porcelain figurines. For more than a decade, Antemann has worked collaboratively with the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen, Germany to create increasingly ornate and elaborate variations on her lifelong love of the narrative, porcelain figurine. Recent years have seen a tremendous culmination of her time working with MEISSEN. Between 2015-2019, her large-scale installation Forbidden Fruit: Porcelain Sculptor Chris Antemann toured the US, Germany, and culminated at the State Hermitage Museum, Russia. In 2022, her largest, most complex sculpture to-date was unveiled at Hillwood Estate, Museum, & Gardens in Washington, DC; An Occasion to Gather reveals its sumptuous narrative across an eight-foot-long, four-foot-high dining room centerpiece. The relationship with MEISSEN continues and a decade of collaboration will be celebrated with an exhibition at the Meissen Porcelain Museum in Meissen, Germany from July 15, 2022 – February 26, 2023.

Antemann earned her MFA from the University of Minnesota and her BFA in Ceramics and Painting from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She has exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe, Russia, and Asia. Her work can be found in many private and public collections, including the Crocker Art Museum, High Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, the Portland Art Museum, among many others. Her awards include the Virginia A. Groot first prize, and residencies with the Archie Bray Foundation, the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology.

Cristina Córdova in EL PUENTE

Cristina Córdova in EL PUENTE

John & Robyn Horn Gallery

At Penland School of Craft

Penland, NC

April 1 – June 7, 2025

Featuring work by Cristina Córdova

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION


A metaphorical bridge, El Puente, exists between Puerto Rico and the US, which share a complex and often misunderstood political and cultural relationship. How do we express El Puente through the lens of Puerto Rican artists?

This exhibition centers on legacy and culture, focusing on multi-generational artists in dialogue with the US through their education, residencies, and career opportunities. Co-curator Cristina Córdova characterizes this phenomenon as a continuous loop of communal encounters and mutual influence, followed by a momentary respite in which the encounters are assimilated and transformed within the artistic community. This pattern has taken place over many years and generations, moving back and forth between two territories inextricably connected yet distinctly separate, sometimes with intention and at times unconsciously. What are the influences of this bridge on the insular art community in Puerto Rico and how do the experiences evolve in the vacuum of an underresourced arts community?

Through the lens of Puerto Rican artists who have cultivated long- and short-term connections with the US throughout their formative and professional trajectories, El Puente offers insights into how these connections shape and inform the artistic practices, perspectives, and creative trajectories of Puerto Rican artists and consequently feed into the broader landscape of contemporary American craft in an evolving and continuous dynamic.

Participating artists: Cristina Córdova, Ada del Pilar Ortiz, Luis Gabriel Sanabria, and Jaime Suárez

ABOUT CRISTINA CÓRDOVA


Puerto Rican, b. 1976, Boston, MA
lives and works in Penland, NC

Native to Puerto Rico, Cristina Córdova creates figurative compositions that explore the boundary between the materiality of an object and our involuntary dialogues with the self-referential. Images captured through the lens of a Latin American upbringing question socio-cultural notions of gender, race, beauty, and power.  Córdova has received numerous grants including the North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship Grant, a Virginia Groot Foundation Recognition Grant, several International Association of Art Critics of Puerto Rico awards, and a prestigious United States Artist Fellowship award in 2015.

Córdova has had solo exhibitions at the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, (Alfred, NY), and her work is included in the collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, (Washington, DC), Colección Acosta de San Juan Puerto Rico, (San Juan, PR), the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, (Charlotte, NC), and Museum of Contemporary Art, (San Juan, PR). In 1998, Córdova completed her BA at the University of Puerto Rico, and she received her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2002. Córdova is represented by Ferrin Contemporary.