Project Type: CURRENT

02
Sep
2025
KADRI PÄRNAMETS: MURAKA

KADRI PÄRNAMETS: MURAKA

on view at Ferrin Contemporary

Summer Gallery
54 Main Street
Cummington, MA

September 20 – November 15, 2025

VIEW THE PRESS RELEASE

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

CUMMINGTON, MA – Ferrin Contemporary is proud to present Kadri Pärnamets: Muraka, a new exhibition by one of Project Art’s resident artists. The exhibition features porcelain sculptures reflecting on the universal element of water and natural forms opening during Riverfest and Project Art’s Open House on Saturday, September 20th. The public is invited to a short talk with Kadri and gallery director, Leslie Ferrin followed by a reception at 4:30 pm. The exhibit is on view through November 15, 2025.

The exhibition builds on two bodies of work: Kadri Pärnamets: Choreography of Water, her 2022 solo show at Ferrin Contemporary in North Adams, Massachusetts, as well as her first site-responsive public art commission, Fire Sculpture at Claytopia at Guldagergaard in Skælskør, Denmark. The works in Muraka continue themes of abstract biomorphic forms inspired by water, air, and the changing environment of the river ecosystem. Pärnamets uses water as a metaphor; her multicolored surfaces and organic forms visually reference water’s vast, expansive body that connects land and sky and its forces that impact both protect and threaten the land, earth’s inhabitants and possibly humanity itself.

Ferrin Contemporary director Leslie Ferrin comments “Kadri’s grounding in her own environments in both Estonia and Cummington provides a deep foundation for her soft forms and surfaces. Straddling two worlds, her daily walks provide inspiration and the time for reflection as she watches the colors change and considers the impact on nature from the turbulent forces pulling us forward.”

Pärnamets chose the title for her exhibition Muraka, naming it after a place with special meaning for her in Estonia. Muraka is a nature reserve in her home country characterised by its wetlands, unspoilt forest and one of few remaining wilderness areas in north-east Estonia.

Kadri Pärnamets: Muraka includes her first large scale porcelain sculptures produced in 2025 with support from the A.R.T. 2025 grant from Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. The funding provided time and materials to expand on two series 2024 that are included in the exhibition – Fragments of Waves and Frame of Mind series’. These pieces differ in form and scale while tracing a clear flow of consciousness from her past works. Works are placed in rows like thoughts drifting to the surface, contained in their individualism, but connected as part of a wider sea or ecosystem. Her surface treatments, which alternate between matte respites and shimmering, effervescent blue glaze, speak not only to the glimmer of sun on water, but to the changing environment back home in Massachusetts. Residing along the Westfield River, Pärnamets works amongst an everpresent soundtrack of the river’s current and the hush of waving willow trees. In the studio and on her daily walks through the neighborhood, she is always observing, listening, and finding inspiration in the acute timbres and textures of the changing New England seasons.

Kadri Pärnamets: Muraka opens during the RiverFest organized by Cummington Cultural District. The family-friendly, participatory day long programs celebrate the wild and scenic Westfield River that runs through the heart of Cummington, MA. Throughout the festival, artists, humanists, and scientists share their practices and knowledge as a frame for hands-on, experiential, and sensory experiences for participants across a variety of means of engagement, including workshops, walks, guided movement, performances, and public artworks. As part of this, Kadri and her husband, sculptor Sergei Isupov, will host a day-long RAKU firing. Participants may bring up to four bisqued ceramic pieces to glaze and fire during their chosen firing slot. Visit Project Art’s event page to learn more and register.

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

PROGRAMMING

OPENING RECEPTION & ARTIST TALK

September 20, 2025
4:30-5:30pm

Join Kadri Pärnamets for an artist talk about her new exhibition, Kadri Pärnamets: MURAKA, in the Summer Gallery at Ferrin Contemporary. Kadri will speak about her new series of works in the show, her process, and her life in Western, MA.

PRESS

At Ferrin Contemporary, cloud-like porcelain sculptures take shape in Kadri Pärnamets’ ‘Muraka’

By Jennifer Huberdeau, The Berkshire Eagle, September 18th, 2025

Exhibition inspired by rivers, seas and Estonian bog landscapes.

ABOUT KADRI PÄRNAMETS

Kadri Pärnamets, Artist Portrait, 2022

Estonian, b. 1968, Rakvere, Estonia
lives and works in Cummington, MA

Kadri Pärnamets works in porcelain using traditional hand building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form. Her biomorphic, organic forms provide a means to convey her personal interests ranging from fragile, natural environments to female identity. Her surface treatments feature a range of gesture and expression with either abstract shape or narrative figure painting, inspired by painters from the European Renaissance and Impressionist eras, like Lucas Cranach the Elder and Edouard Manet.

Pärnamets’ work has been shown internationally at the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design (Tallinn, Estonia), at the International Tea Trade Expo (Shanghai, China), and many others. Since 1996, she has participated in symposiums in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Switzerland, USA, Norway, and Hungary.

Pärnamets graduated from the Art Institute of Tallinn, Estonia 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.

09
May
2025
COURTNEY M. LEONARD IN: Connect the Dots | Journey through the Lilley Museum Collection

COURTNEY M. LEONARD IN: Connect the Dots | Journey through the Lilley Museum Collection

Lilley Museum of Art

1664 North Virginia Street
Reno, Nevada

on view permanently

INQUIRE FOR AVAILABLE WORK BY COURTNEY M. LEONARD

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

To “connect the dots” means to understand the interrelatedness of different facts or events. Connecting the dots is also a logic puzzle, and a fun game for kids. This installation is meant to encourage you to take a meandering journey, to explore the history of a broad and diverse collection, leaving room for contemplation and play. Pairings and installations around themes of place, people, and materiality compel us to think about the artists who made the work, the conditions and time periods the work was made, and our relationship to both.

There is a spirit of shared authorship throughout, with contributions and reflections from artists, scholars, and community members.

This exhibition brings together artworks from across the Lilley Museum of Art’s permanent collection. It includes recent acquisitions and loans from significant collections. Most of the works on display are on view for the very first time.

I hope this exhibition fosters curiosity and critical reflection about the places and things we care about, the objects and memories we collect, and the havoc and harmony we bring as humans while living on this fragile earth.

Stephanie Gibson, Director
John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art

ABOUT BREACH #2 | Now part of the Lilley Museum of Art Permanent Collection

The Breach #2 series began in 2014-5 in response to a 2005 event, when a 50-ton finback whale carcass washed up on a beach close to the Shinnecock Indian Nation’s territory on eastern Long Island. The mammal is vital to the tribe’s history and culture, but since treaty agreements are not recognized by the federal government, the whale was federally protected. Members from Shinnecock went down to perform ceremonies and pray for the whale’s spirit, but the remains of the animal were disposed of by the city.

The artist asks, “can a culture sustain itself when it no longer has access to the environment that defines it?”

This sculpture is made through a process of coiling, slipcasting, firing, and an acrylic glaze. Each piece is handmade and hand-sanded. The delicate porcelain is juxtaposed against a weathered shipping pallet, representative of an industry that is responsible for the fragility of the world-wide whale population. Each year thousands of whales are struck by container ships, like the one that was killed in 2005.

ABOUT COURTNEY M. LEONARD

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

Courtney M. Leonard is an artist and filmmaker, who has contributed to the Offshore Art movement. Leonard’s current work embodies the multiple definitions of “breach”, an exploration and documentation of historical ties to water, whale and material sustainability. In collaboration with national and international museums, cultural institutions, and indigenous communities in North America, New Zealand, Nova Scotia, and the United States Embassies, Leonard’s practice investigates narratives of cultural viability as a reflection of environmental record.

Leonard’s work is in the permanent public collections of the United States Art In Embassies, the Crocker Art Museum, the Heard Museum, ASU’s Art Museum and Ceramic Research Center, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of the North, the Mystic Seaport Museum, and the Pomona Museum of Art.

Leonard has been the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, and residencies that include The Andy Warhol Foundation, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Rasmuson Foundation, The United States Art In Embassies Program, and The Native Arts and Culture Foundation.

30
Apr
2025
Making in Between: Indigenous Americans

Making in Between: Indigenous Americans

American Museum Of Ceramic Art (AMOCA)

399 N Garey Ave
Pomona, CA

May 24–November 30, 2025

INQUIRE FOR AVAILABLE WORK BY COURTNEY M. LEONARD

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

This project is the third and final exhibition in AMOCA’s “Making in Between” series, which brings together works by artists who explore identity, culture, and community.

In 2020, Making in Between: Contemporary Chinese American Ceramics featured works by six first- and second-generation artists who shared themes of cultural heritage, identity, language, politics, migration, and displacement. In 2023, Making in Between: Queer Clay shifted the lens to consider influences on identity, centering queerness as an unapologetic presence and featuring works by historical artists whose identities have remained largely unseen alongside contemporary makers.

Making in Between: Indigenous Americans exhibits works by Mercedes Dorame, Anita Fields, Courtney M. Leonard, and Cannupa Hanska Luger, artists who embrace their heritage and explore boundary-pushing themes of identity, culture, history, and community. MIB: IA introduces a breadth of unique narratives from these trailblazing artists and complicates viewers’ expectations of what constitutes contemporary Indigenous art.

The exhibition is accompanied by catalog featuring full color images and new essays by Kendra Greendeer, Larissa Nez, and Isabella Robbins.

ABOUT COURTNEY M. LEONARD

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

Courtney M. Leonard is an artist and filmmaker, who has contributed to the Offshore Art movement. Leonard’s current work embodies the multiple definitions of “breach”, an exploration and documentation of historical ties to water, whale and material sustainability. In collaboration with national and international museums, cultural institutions, and indigenous communities in North America, New Zealand, Nova Scotia, and the United States Embassies, Leonard’s practice investigates narratives of cultural viability as a reflection of environmental record.

Leonard’s work is in the permanent public collections of the United States Art In Embassies, the Crocker Art Museum, the Heard Museum, ASU’s Art Museum and Ceramic Research Center, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of the North, the Mystic Seaport Museum, and the Pomona Museum of Art.

Leonard has been the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, and residencies that include The Andy Warhol Foundation, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Rasmuson Foundation, The United States Art In Embassies Program, and The Native Arts and Culture Foundation.

29
Jan
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

Works from Paul Scott’s New American Scenery is presented at its 7th tour location starting April 24th, 2025. The exhibition at the Lightner Museum marks the artist’s fifth solo show in the US, spanning 2019 to 2025.

VIEW PAUL SCOTT EXHIBITION HISTORY
INQUIRE FOR EXHIBITION CHECKLIST

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.

VIEW THE PRESS RELEASE

Newly Produced Works for the Exhibition

“[I] use print trays to house select edited remnants of our industrial past. Transferware, Staffordshire’s great gift to the world, melded the technology of the paper printer with vitreous melted cobalt blues to create mystical, exotic images on a domestic affordable scale. I harvest details from old, cracked and broken tablewares and give them new lives and meanings in collages that meld historical detail with contemporary fragments of my own printed ceramics. The tray is also a remnant, a memory of the print media revolution which helped facilitate the industrial age and enable the democratization of imagery.”

  • Paul Scott

Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, Souvenirs, Collage No:1.
2025
Transferware collage, Rowland Marsellus and Adams early 20th century souvenir plates, in altered, repurposed print tray made in America
23 x 16 x 2″.
Paul Scott 2025.

‘The amount of land scorched by wildfires in California has been on the rise for decades, and human-caused climate change is almost entirely to blame.

A new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that California’s summertime burned area has increased fivefold since 1971….  and could grow by another 50 percent by 2050. More he study finds that rising temperatures and declining precipitation, fuelled by human emissions of greenhouse gases, are the primary culprit. Increasingly arid conditions have provided a surplus of dry fuel for fires to consume, causing bigger and more intense blazes as time goes on. Natural fluctuations in the Earth’s climate, on the other hand, have had little to no influence on California’s worsening fire season. The study makes it clear that human activity is at fault.’ – Chelsea Harvey, Scientific American, (June 14, 2023)…..

The California Wildfires, Los Angeles collage plate was produced in response to the devastating events of early 2025.

Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, California Wildfires,  LA Series No:1.
2025
Transferware collage on altered Rowland Marsellus Souvenir plate c.1900
10 x 10 x 1″.
Paul Scott 2025.

ABOUT PAUL SCOTT

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.

Paul Scott, Artist Portrait, 2022
22
Jan
2025
PORCELAIN LOVE LETTERS: The Art of Mara Superior

PORCELAIN LOVE LETTERS: The Art of Mara Superior

May 10 – October 26, 2025

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

SHELBURNE MUSEUM
6000 Shelburne Road
PO Box 10
Shelburne, VT

Ceramics Gallery, Variety Unit

For a list of available works, please email info@ferrincontemporary.com

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Porcelain Love Letters: The Art of Mara Superior

Artist Mara Superior has a deep love for porcelain—a dedication that compels her to work with this ancient and often unpredictable material. She works with slab construction and fires her pieces in a high-temperature reduction atmosphere, techniques that make the process even more challenging and increase the risk of warping or breakage.

Trained as a painter, Superior discovered the beauty and creative possibilities of porcelain in the late 1970s. Since then, she has focused entirely on this bright but delicate material, appreciating both its fragility and its strength. She describes porcelain as a “magical three-dimensional canvas,” where she carefully paints detailed, whimsical images and adds sculpted designs to create pieces that are both visually striking and rich with meaning. 

Superior’s art draws inspiration from many sources, including Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, illuminated manuscripts, Renaissance art, historical ceramics, and Americana. She blends these influences to create her distinctive and romantic style. Each piece feels like a love letter to the world—reflecting her deep affection for home, good food, the environment, and her country.

This exhibition showcases a wide range of Mara Superior’s work, from her early explorations to her latest creations. It features commissioned pieces from private collections along with deeply personal works from her own home—many of which have never been shown before. Superior considers these her most treasured pieces, reflecting both her artistic skill and creative imagination.

PROGRAMMING

Member Event: Fired and Inspired: A Conversation with Porcelain Artist Mara Superior

Saturday, June 7 | 4pm – 5pm
Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education Auditorium

Shelburne Museum welcomes its Member community to a special evening with acclaimed ceramic artist Mara Superior for an illustrated panel discussion exploring her nearly five-decade career working in porcelain. She will be joined by Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, the Anthony W. And Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Kory Rogers, the Francie and John Downing Senior Curator of American Art at Shelburne Museum.

Together, they will examine the autobiographical nature of Superior’s work, her artistic influences, and the historical precedents that inform her practice. The conversation will also consider the evolving themes in her art—including the significance of home, food, travel, fine and decorative arts, and activism—as well as what lies ahead in the next chapter of her remarkable career.

Open to Shelburne Museum Members.

Registration coming soon!

Not yet a Member? Join HERE for access to this exciting Member event!

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.

This event was presented live via Zoom on April 8 at 12:00 pm EDT. 

EXHIIBITION CATALOG

Mara Superior, “Porcelain Love Letters: The Art of Mara Superior”, Shelburne Museum Catalog

“Porcelain Love Letters: The Art of Mara Superior” celebrates the extraordinary ceramic work of Mara Superior, featuring essays, photography, and archival material from her career. Produced in partnership with Shelburne Museum and Ferrin Contemporary, this book offers insight into one of America’s most accomplished contemporary ceramic artists.

  • Copyright© 2025
  • Published by Ferrin Contemporary in association with Shelburne Museum, 2025
  • Exhibition curator: Kory Rogers, Francie and John Downing Senior Curator of American Art
  • Artwork Photography: John Polak
  • Catalog Design: Mikulak Design
  • Porcelain Love Letters: The Art of Mara Superior is made possible by Merle and Barry Ginsburg, with additional support from Donna and Marvis Schwartz.
  • Photography made possible by the Kohler Foundation.
  • ISBN 978-0-9904312-3-7

 

PURCHASE THE CATALOG HERE

PRESS

WAMC INTERVIEW: “Porcelain Love Letters: The Art of Mara Superior”

The exhibition, “Porcelain Love Letters: The Art of Mara Superior” opens at The Shelburne Museum on May 10.

Superior’s porcelain art combines intricate painted imagery and sculptural forms through which she explores themes of history, domesticity, and environmentalism.

Trained as a painter, Superior discovered the beauty and creative possibilities of porcelain in the late 1970s. Since then, she has focused entirely on this bright but delicate material, appreciating both its fragility and its strength.

Superior’s work is inspired by many interests, including art history, patriotism, environmentalism, and everyday life at home. We welcome Mara Superior to the show along with Kory Rogers, the Francie and John Downing Senior Curator of American Art at Shelburne Museum in Vermont.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

ABOUT MARA SUPERIOR

Mara Superior, Artist Portrait, 2020, Photo by John Polak Photography

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

Shelburne Museum Aerial Shot of Grounds. Photo courtesy of the museum.
20
Jan
2025
Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses

Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

EMILY COLE: Ceramics, Flora & Contemporary Responses places the art of Emily Cole (1843-1913), daughter of Thomas Cole, into conversation with eight internationally-celebrated, 21st-century artists within the Cole family’s historic home and studio.

Emily Cole was an esteemed professional artist in her own right, who painted dynamic botanicals on porcelain and watercolors on paper. She exhibited and sold her art in New York City and the Hudson Valley, received critical acclaim, traveled internationally, studied at the National Academy of Design, and was a founding member in 1892 of the New York Society of Ceramic Arts, an organization that advocated for ceramics to be exhibited in museum galleries.

The exhibition will include the largest display of original painted porcelain and works on paper by Emily Cole ever shown since the 19th century. Her work will be presented alongside, and in conversation with, contemporary works that span ceramics, sculpture, installation, painting, and photography. The contemporary artists are Ann Agee, Jacqueline Bishop, Francesca DiMattio, Valerie Hegarty, Courtney M. Leonard, Jiha Moon, Michelle Sound, and Stephanie Syjuco. 

The exhibition’s curators are Kate Menconeri, Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, Contemporary Art, and Fellowship at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and Amanda Malmstrom, Associate Curator at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. The project was developed in conversation with the featured artists and the following advisors: Jenni Sorkin, PhD, Professor of the History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara, specializing in contemporary art and material culture; Amy Meyers, PhD, former Director of the Yale Center for British Art, specializing in art and science in the transatlantic world; the artist Kiki Smith; Lisa Sanditz, artist and Bard College teaching faculty; and Nicole Hayes, practicing ceramics teacher and graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. 

 

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site preserves and interprets the home, and studios of Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of painting, the formative 19th-century art movement of the United States. Cole’s profound influence on America’s cultural landscape and the historic context of his work inspires us to engage broad audiences through innovative educational programs that are relevant today.

VIEW THE PRESS RELEASE

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

COURTNEY M. LEONARD

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

More on Courtney M. Leonard

Courtney M . Leonard, "BREACH | Logbook 21 | CONVOKE | Abundance Basket and Contour", 2021, multi-ply birch wood and acrylic, coiled and woven earthenware, coiled micaceous clay, oyster shells, ~ 6 x 15 x 15" (basket), 2.5 x 40 x 48" (wood contour form), John Polak Photography.

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

JACQUELINE BISHOP

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

PROGRAMMING

EXHIBITION OPENING
Free and open to the public. Saturday, May 3 | 4-6pm

Emily Cole Talk by Amanda Malmstrom, exhibition co-curator
Saturday, June 7

Artists’ Panel with Kate Menconeri (exhibition co-curator), Ann Agee, Francesca DiMattio, Valerie Hegarty, & Jacqueline Bishop
Saturday, September 20 | 2pm

CURATOR TOURS: “Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses”

Friday, June 13, 2025
Friday, August 15, 2025
Friday, October 10, 2025

Tour Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses” with the curators.

PRESS

Ann Agee, Valerie Hegarty and Francesca DiMattio were inspired to make new works, while Jacqueline Bishop, Courtney M. Leonard, Jiha Moon, Michelle Sound and Stephanie Syjuco made site-responsive installations. These are all in lively conversation throughout the house and studio with Emily Cole’s china wares (originally produced and exhibited in the same studio where her father once worked).

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Emily Cole, Daughter of Hudson River School Icon, Shines in Overdue Museum Show

The exhibition at Thomas Cole National Historic Site showcases her porcelain paintings alongside work by contemporary women artists.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

15
Jan
2025
Recall. Reframe. Respond. The Art of Paul Scott

Recall. Reframe. Respond. The Art of Paul Scott

Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati, OH

October 10, 2025 – January 4, 2026

Recall. Reframe. Respond. 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. This marks the artist’s sixth solo show in the US, spanning 2019 to 2026. 

VIEW ALL EXHIBITIONS

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

At first glance, artist Paul Scott’s transfer-printed tableware* may look familiar—like something you have seen in your grandparents’ china cabinet or a second-hand shop. Look closer and you will notice subtle differences that add up to a powerful narrative shift. Scott (British, b. 1953) subverts this seemingly unassuming blue-and-white “cultural wallpaper” to create sharp, thought-provoking social commentary. Working with new ceramic forms or repurposing antique pieces, Scott breaks, reassembles, erases, and adds details using screenprinting, engraving, and collage processes to create new “historical” patterns. Broadly, his works address updated narratives about art, history and American experiences.

During a visit to Ohio State University in 1999, Scott encountered a new genre of historical blue-and-white transferware. Beginning in the mid-1800s, manufacturers in Staffordshire, England, produced these objects specifically for American collectors. Long familiar with British transfer-printed ceramics, Scott knew little about those made for export—wares that memorialized certain American figures, landscapes, architecture, industries, and historical events. Since then, Scott has become one of a long line of travelers and observers who have visited and then written about or depicted this country, offering an outsider’s perspective. To this end, the artist’s New American Scenery series reflects his personal experiences of being and traveling in America, and, in his words, the need to “rebalance the narrative with something more contemporary and inclusive.”

Ripe for reframing and responding, the museum’s American art collections will serve as a springboard for Scott to present existing and new works, inviting various perspectives and initiating conversations about our shared American experience.

*Transfer-printed ware, or transferware, describes industrially produced ceramic tableware that has a decorative pattern applied by transferring a print first from an engraved copper plate to special paper and finally to the ceramic’s surface. This term also applies to modern wares with printed graphic surfaces made using more recent printmaking techniques and decal transfer technologies.

VIEW THE PRESS RELEASE

Paul Scott, "Scott's Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, Angola 3" 2019, in-glaze screen print (decal) on salvaged Syracuse China with pearlware glaze, 11 x 11 x 1". draws reference to three Black inmates in the Louisiana State Penitentiary in the 1970s—Robert King, Herman Wallace, and Albert Woodfox—who were held in solitary confinement for the longest period in American history. It is suspected that this unethical treatment was retaliation for the inmates’ connection to the Black Panther Party. In 2001, King’s conviction was overturned and he was released. In 2013, Amnesty International called for the release of 71-year-old Wallace, who was released in October of that year and, soon after, died of liver cancer. In 2014, Woodfox’s conviction was overturned by the US Court of Appeals and he was released in 2016.

PRESS

Ceramic artist Paul Scott on his work and exhibitions

y Sue Allan

The most enjoyable thing I do, without doubt, is realising art works. The big jug I did last year for the Confected, Borrowed and Blue exhibition at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont was typical of what I do: researching a particular institution or collection and then creating a response to it. At the moment, there are two pieces in particular that I’m working on – two pieces for the Cincinnati which I still haven’t quite resolved. But I know what will happen: as soon as I start collaging, it will fall into place. In order to do that, I’ve done about a year’s worth of research, but I’ve learned that if I just follow the processes, eventually the old brain cells and ideas will catch up with it.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

ABOUT PAUL SCOTT

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.

Paul Scott, Artist Portrait, 2022

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