What types of art do you specialize in?

We specialize in contemporary ceramics from the 1950s onward, including clay and porcelain sculptures.

Do you offer collection services?

Yes, we work with private collectors and artist archives to organize, document, and appraise ceramic art collections for deacquisition or placement.

Can you help with exhibition development?

Absolutely, we collaborate with museums and cultural institutions to develop and present ceramic art exhibitions.

Do you provide touring programs?

Yes, we curate and organize touring exhibitions for contemporary ceramic artists.

What are legacy projects?

Legacy projects include customized services for artists, such as retrospective catalogs, exhibitions, and museum acquisitions.

Project Type: REPRESENTED

Jul

2024

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: EVA XV

EVA XV
2022

unglazed: finished with burnished earth pigments from the island of Puerto Rico mixed with casein, lime, and oxides
60 x 18 x 22″

EVA XV

RECENTLY ON VIEW

Cristina Córdova, “EVA XV”, on view in the Spanish Colonial Gallery at the Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, 2024

2024 | Installation at the Figge Art Museum, Spanish Colonial Gallery
Davenport, IA

Recent Acquisition

Ferrin Contemporary “Our America/Whose America?” Anteroom Stair hall Installation at the Wickham House, Richmond, VA, 2024

OUR AMERICA/WHOSE AMERICA?

2024 | Group Exhibition in the Wickham House at the Valentine Museum | Richmond, VA

February 20, 2024 – April 21, 2024

Our America/Whose America? is a “call and response” exhibition between contemporary artists and historic ceramic objects.

View the exhibition page HERE

Ferrin Contemporary, “Are We There Yet?”, 2023, Exhibition Installation View with work by Chris Antemann, Cristina Córdova, Sergei Isupov, Crystal Morey, & Kurt Weiser, Photo by John Polak Photography

ARE WE THERE YET?

2024 | Group Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA

July 15 – September 2, 2023

ARE WE THERE YET? is a celebration of Ferrin Contemporary’s 40+ years as leaders in the field of modern and contemporary ceramics. What began in 1979 as a woman-owned cooperative studio and gallery in Northampton, MA has flourished across the years and the locations to become the international ceramic experts and material champions known as Ferrin Contemporary.

View the exhibition page HERE

Cristina Córdova, “EVA XV”, 2022, Installation in Figuring Space, at The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA

FIGURING SPACE

2024 | Group Exhibition at The Clay Studio | Philadelphia, PA

January 12 – April 16, 2023

The group of powerful, full-scale representations of human figures will serve as a body of evidence to lay bare the issues that permeate American art and social culture. Each of the artists chosen uses the figure to usurp the painful history of bodies on display in American history. They assert their autonomy and subjectivity by presenting cultural critiques through lenses of their own choosing: race, gender, class, and anti-war ideas. Roberto Lugo, Kensuke Yamada, Cristina Córdova, Chris Rodgers, Sergei Isupov, Christina West, Tip Toland, Jonathan Christensen Caballero, George Rodriguez, Roxanne Swentzell, and Kyungmin Park are among the invited artists.

ABOUT THE WORK

ABOUT “EVA XV”

More on Cristina Córdova HERE

I have been sculpting my daughter since she was 9. This 15 year old version of Eva is unglazed and finished with burnished earth pigments from the island of Puerto Rico mixed with casein, lime, and oxides. They came specifically from two areas, one in Fajardo near the coast, where the rainforest is, and one from Orocovis in the mountainous center. Written on her back are the words “de monte y mar” ( “from mountain and sea” ) in gold, a phrase from the song Verde luz by El Topo (Antonio Cabal Vale), which became a symbol of national Puerto Rican pride and an anti-colonialist anthem.

In my practice, the image of Eva is the embodiment of change and possibility. It speaks to the inevitability of transience and the inherited threads of code that perpetuate both genes and identity. This piece seeks to perform both as a symbol and a relic by holding in its materiality a part of the Island that has thematically bound this whole series through the years, exploring the riches and vulnerabilities of this small Caribbean nation that is my home.

Jun

2024

JACQUELINE BISHOP: Fauna

Fauna
2024
digital print on commercial porcelain, gold lustre
various dimensions

ARTWORK

FAUNA

Tea Service | Limited Edition Set

RECENTLY ON VIEW

Jacqueline Bishop,”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: 6 x 9 x 5.5″. John Polak Photography.

Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses

May 3 – November 2, 2025

Exhibition at Thomas Cole National Historic Site

218 Spring St
Catskill, NY

Featuring work by Jacqueline Bishop and Courtney M. Leonard

Jacqueline Bishop,"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: 6 x 9 x 5.5".

if you should forget me for a while

June 27 through August 25, 2024

Exhibition at Sienna Patti Contemporary
Lenox, MA

Featuring work by Jacqueline Bishop, Melanie Bilenker, Venetia Dale, & Lauren Kalman

ABOUT THE WORK

ABOUT “FAUNA”

More on Jacqueline Bishop HERE

Jacqueline Bishop’s interdisciplinary practice is focused on making visible the ephemeral, in speaking aloud the unspoken, in telling untold stories and voicing voicelessness. Bishop is acutely aware of what it means to be simultaneously an insider and an outsider having lived longer outside of her birthplace of Jamaica than on the island itself. This has allowed her to view a given environment from a distance.

Fauna arises out of Bishop’s long-standing questions about the position of black women in Caribbean society. Her first collection of poems published in 2006, also titled ‘Fauna’, used Caribbean flowers as metaphors to explore the lives of enslaved women. Bishop sees this new commissioned work as a visual manifestation of these poems.

Further research revealed that prior to the ending of the slave trade there was no attention given to either the maternal health of pregnant women or their babies. Where and to whom did enslaved women turn when they were trying to conceive, could not conceive or found themselves with unwanted pregnancies? The answer lay in the plants, flowers, fruits and herbs of Jamaica. Each one contained a unique botanical element that could either end an unwanted pregnancy or encourage fertility. In Fauna Bishop has surrounded the women and their children with healing and protective herbs. Indeed, in one case, the mother is offering her child up to the arms of the natural environment.

Fauna was commissioned by The Harris and will go on display when the museum re- opens in Spring 2025. Unveiling overlooked and brutal histories of slavery and colonialism, Bishop’s work is an important acquisition for The Harris’ ceramic collection. Creating dialogues with other pieces in The Harris’ collection, most importantly an oil painting recently identified as ‘A Jamaica Landscape’ (c. 1774), attributed to George Robertson, Bishop said that her work “intervenes in the idyllic presentation of slavery and enslavement of the painting to present enslaved women using the environment to shield themselves and their children. Both works speak to each other.” Both works will be displayed together as this timely acquisition will play an integral part in a new display exploring the global history of tea, weaving together histories of British Empire, Colonialism and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Jacqueline Bishop (b. 1971, Kingston, Jamaica) lives and works in New York and Miami, Florida. Bishop worked with Emma Price; a British ceramicist based in Stoke- on-Trent in the former Spode factories in the realisation of this new work.

Recent exhibition solo exhibitions include British Art Studies, Paul Mellon Center, London (2022); SRO Gallery, Brooklyn, New York (2018); Meyerhoff Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland (2016). Recent group exhibitions include The Valentine Museum, Richmond, Virginia (2024); Gardiner Museum, Toronto, Ontario, CA (2024); Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (2023); Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA (2022); British Ceramics Biennial (2021); Stoke-on-Trent (2021) and Jamaica Biennial, National Gallery of Jamaica. Kingston (2017).

NEWS

**New Acquisition: Fauna by Jacqueline Bishop**

The Harris is thrilled to announce a new acquisition to our collection, presented by the Contemporary Art Society

Jacqueline Bishop’s interdisciplinary masterpiece, ‘Fauna’, sheds light on overlooked narratives of enslaved women in Caribbean society. Commissioned by The Harris, this evocative ceramic work intertwines botanical elements with maternal themes, unveiling poignant stories of resilience. Displaying alongside historical pieces, ‘Fauna’ sparks dialogues on the global history of tea and colonialism. Don’t miss its unveiling in Spring 2025!

READ MORE HERE

Jacqueline Bishop, “Fauna”, 2024, digital print on porcelain, gold lustre, Simon Critchley Photography

May

2024

JACQUELINE BISHOP: The Narratives of Migration

The Narratives of Migration
edition of 3
2024
digital print on commercial porcelain, gold lustre
11 x 11 x .5

RECENTLY ON VIEW

NARRATIVES OF MIGRATION

Limited Edition Set | Edition of 3

ABOUT THE WORK

ABOUT “THE NARRATIVES OF MIGRATION”

More on Jacqueline Bishop HERE

The series of plates derives its title from a poem I wrote which traces various migrations within my family. As a child growing up on the island of Jamaica, I never knew my mother’s father, but I knew that he lived in England where he had another family. My mother and her brother– his children– were left back on the island of Jamaica.

Jamaica’s relationship with England began in 1655 when, having failed to wrest Cuba from Spain, the English settled on Jamaica as a secondary prize. While I grew up in an independent country (achieved from England in 1962) England still loomed large in my consciousness as a child born in the 1970s. Even today, the British Monarch remains Head of State of Jamaica, which is part of the Commonwealth.

In this work, it is both my family’s history and a larger English/Jamaican history that I have sought to trace. These plates consist of family photographs of my grandmother, my mother, and my mother’s brother in Jamaica, and my grandfather, his wife, and my aunts in England. They reference the recent Windrush scandal whereby British citizens from the Caribbean living in the UK for decades were being deported back to the Caribbean, and they tell a longer story of enslavement. Replete are images of the flora and fauna of the Caribbean which would be taken from the island to fill English gardens and give rise to the field of Natural history. Also included are the icons of nationalism developed for Jamaica by the British.

What these plates show is that in both personal and political terms, the relationship between Jamaica and the UK is one that is enduring.

-Jacqueline Bishop

NEWS

Nov

2023

Underneath Everything: Humility and Grandeur in Contemporary Ceramics

UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING: HUMILITY AND GRANDEUR IN CONTEMPORARY CERAMICS

Traveling exhibition shown nationally | 2023 – Present

Featuring works by Rae Stern

During an artist lecture in December 2021, Theaster Gates evoked a fascinating paradox in contemporary ceramics practice. Clay is the humblest of materials, often overlooked and more readily associated with a morning cup of coffee than with the international art world. But it is underneath everything. There is an expansiveness to work made or based in this medium, as artists push the limitations of clay, attaching layers of conceptual meaning and playing with the boundaries between ceramics and other media including film, photography, painting, performance, and installation.

This exhibition features artworks that honor the humility of the medium while simultaneously evoking a sense of grandeur and possibility.

Underneath Everything: Humility and Grandeur in Contemporary Ceramics is organized by the Des Moines Art Center in consultation with an Artist Advisory Committee including Katayoun Amjadi, Donté K. Hayes, Ingrid Lilligren, and Chuck Purviance.

CURRENT INSTALLATION

Featuring work by

Rae Stern

Grand Rapids Art Museum

101 Monroe Center St NW

Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Underneath Everything
Humility and Grandeur in Contemporary Ceramics

Grand Rapids Art Museum | Grand Rapids, MI | October 7 – January 14, 2023

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

FEATURING RAE STERN

Rae Stern, "A Fugal Arrangement", detail, 2023, part of "Underneath Everything Humility and Grandeur in Contemporary Ceramics", exhibition at Grand Rapids Art Museum, Oct 7, 2023 - Jan 14, 2024, photos courtesy of Grand Rapids Art Museum

ABOUT RAE STERN

Rae Stern’s practice employs digital tools in the manipulation of multiple media including ceramics, photography, paper, and textiles. After a decade in the high-tech industry, her work is concerned with the social and cultural effects of technology. Between 2009 and 2018, Stern collaborated with Aya Margulis under the name Doda Design and created several bodies of work. Recent residencies include the Penland School of Crafts, Anderson Ranch, and Belger Crane Yard Studios. Stern has received grants from Asylum Arts, the Schusterman Foundation, and Belger Arts.

Stern’s work has been exhibited internationally at The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Eretz Israel Museum (Tel Aviv, Israel), Belger Arts (Kansas City, MO), Harvard University (Boston, MA), and Medalta Museum, (Alberta, Canada). Her work is included in the collection of Eretz Israel Museum, as well as numerous private collections in Israel and the USA. Stern completed her undergraduate degree in psychology and communications at Tel Aviv University followed by a master’s degree in design from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.

ALL ARTISTS

Katayoun Amjadi
Eliza Au
Sally Binard
Paul Briggs
Candice J. Davis
Edmund de Waal
Theaster Gates
Donté Hayes

Simone Leigh
Anina Major
Heidi McKenzie
Magdalene A.N. Odundo DBE
Vick Quezada
Ibrahim Said
Rae Stern
Ehren Tool
Ai Weiwei

MEDIA

VIRTUAL TOUR

UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING: HUMILITY AND GRANDEUR IN CONTEMPORARY CERAMICS

Des Moines Art Center
Des Moines, IA

PRESS & PUBLICATIONS

Grand Rapids Art Museum Opens Underneath Everything: Humility and Grandeur in Contemporary Ceramics, The Rapidian, October 10th, 2023

PAST PROGRAMMING

UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING

PAST PROGRAMMING

Underneath Everything
Humility and Grandeur in Contemporary Ceramics

Anna K. Meredith Gallery, Des Moines Art Center | Des Moines, IA | June 3 – September 10, 2023

Underneath Everything: Humility and Grandeur in Contemporary Ceramics, 2023

Anina Major, “SOLITUDE” 2018

Rae Stern, “A Fugal Arrangement”, 2023

Anina Major, “SOLITUDE” 2018

Rae Stern, “A Fugal Arrangement”, 2023

CATALOG

UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING

Published by The Des Moines Art Center

EXHIBITION CATALOG

Underneath Everything Humility and Grandeur in Contemporary Ceramics Catalog

$25.00 | 10% off for Members

Purchase the catalog HERE

UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING: HUMILITY AND GRANDEUR IN CONTEMPORARY CERAMICS, organized by Mia Laufer, Associate Curator at the Des Moines Art Center.

DES MOINES ART CENTER
June 3—September 10, 2023

GRAND RAPIDS ART MUSEUM
October 7, 2023—January 13, 2024

The exhibition and catalogue were supported by: The Harriet S. and J. Locke Macomber Art Center Fund, EMC Insurance Companies and Toni and Tim Urban International Artist-in-Residence Fund.

DESIGNER
Goizane Esain Mullin, Des Moines, Iowa

EDITOR
Sheila Mauck | Des Moines, Iowa

TRANSLATION
Iowa International Center, Des Moines, IA

PRINTER
Point B Solutions, Minneapolis, MN

ISBN: 978-1-879003-81-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023906097

Catalog Preview

Underneath Everything Catalogue Preview featuring Rae Stern

Mar

2023

SERGEI ISUPOV

ON VIEW

SERGEI ISUPOV: Ancestor

Anderson Gallery

Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, MA

November 1 – February 24, 2025

View the exhibition page HERE

ARTWORK

INSTALLATIONS & SERIES

SERGEI ISUPOV: ANCESTOR

2024 – 2025 | Solo Exhibition at Anderson Gallery, Bridgewater State University

Isupov’s ANCESTOR unites the collection of figurative works that show the evolution of ideas in his work. As expressed in the characters he portrays, the sculptures’ eyes and gestures activate relationships that are universal and timeless. Isupov explores narratives from the past as well as the present in multiple pieces, bridging memory and place into displays of his work. Born into a family of Russian artists during the USSR, he spent his childhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, educated in Tallinn, Estonia and now lives and works in Western Massachusetts.

“Regardless of our backgrounds or wherever in the world we came to be, our shared experiences as humans are interwoven and passed on from generation to generation. The exhibition Ancestor allowed me to reflect on these works and my sources of inspiration and motivation … When I think of myself and my works, I’m not sure I create them, perhaps they create me.” – Sergei Isupov

Traditional Family

We Are All from The Sky

Modern Family

Family Chess

FIGURAL SCULPTURE

“Art is a life style for me. Everything that surrounds and excites me is automatically processed and transformed into the final result: an artwork. It is fascinating to watch the transitions from life to art. The essence of my work is not in the medium or the creative process, but the in 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.

I find ceramic to be the most versatile material and it is well suited to the expression of my ideas. I consider sculpture to be a canvas for my paintings. All plastic, graphic and painting elements of the piece function as complementary parts of the work.

In this series of two-legged figures, Statuettes, the form is classical but the characters are comical. I like the contrast of serious to humorous – the front is cartoon like but the back of each figure features an intimate painting of the being’s spirit.

While each one expresses an individual personality or character, as a group, they become a population, inhabitants of my imaginary world or visitors from my imagination.”

Hidden Messages

Game Changer

Puppeteer

Silver Anniversary

ANDROGYNY

HEADS & BUSTS

The Androgyny series of heads and busts, often with surrealistic features and complex facial expressions, was first presented by Ferrin Gallery in 2008 (Pittsfield, MA Location). The works were exhibited in his groundbreaking solo show at Mesa Contemporary Arts Center (Mesa, AZ) and traveled to the Daum Museum of Art (Sedalia, MO) in 2009. Isupov returns to this scale and series with the most recent work Heritage featured in Alliances (Keene, NH) in 2023, and Ancestor (Bridgewater, MA) in 2024. Select pieces remain in the artist’s archive available for exhibition, public and private collections.

Soul of the Planet

Heritage

2009 | “Androgyny: New Work by Sergei Isupov”, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO, October 3 – December 6, 2009

2009 | “Androgyny”, Mesa Contemporary Arts Center, Mesa, AZ, April 10 – August 2, 2009

2008 | “Androgyny, The Preview, Solo Exhibition: Sculpture, Painting, Drawing”; Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield, MA

“My work is about contrasts and relationships. I explore contrasts of human condition with my story lines such as male-female and human-animal relationships, and accompanying emotions of warmth and aggression, love and rejection, and nurture and abandonment. Dynamic and interactive narratives are developed using two and three dimensions at the same time with the sculpted form and painted surface. I use a visual vocabulary and classic tools of design, proportion, perspective and silhouette to both sculpt and paint. Eyes show emotional relationships. Facial and figural gestures develop personalities. Illusionary objects and perspectives suggest motion. As a viewer moves around the work, they see each angle and focus point leading to new chapters and story lines. Combined, these clues tell an overall story.”

Busker

Chosen One

Guardian

Horsepower

Man

Midnight Son

HUMANIMALS

Humanimals, transform anthropomorphic sculptures that explore human relationships by blending the expression and gesture of the combined species.

A sculptural surrealist, Isupov first created works in the Humanimal Series around 2011, with a set of “standing figures” (animal/human hybrids) and “riders” (animal figures on animal/human hybrids)

In 2015 Isupov returned to his iconic form of the Humanimal, a series of standing oversized figurines. New groups and works emerge as the artist delves into the right form for each of his concepts. Close Your Eyes Open Your Eyes, Burden II, Butterfly Catcher, Life’s Work, and Strong hail from multiple eras in the artist’s exploration of the series.

“The animal faces and features represent the beast or natural animal instincts that are often in conflict with reason and intellect.

The hand represents the hand of a human or god – both a comforting support for humanity and a force of opposition or challenge to animal instincts.

The two sculptures explore these ideas of opposing forces of nature and humanity, man and beast, integral and constant throughout life. There is nothing literal intended in the choice of imagery or narrative. The images and expressions are of male/female/animal – symbolic, metaphoric, and intended to provide for individual interpretation. ”

Close Your Eyes, Open Your Eyes

Butterfly Catcher

Burden II

Life’s Work

Strong

Amaco

SERGEI ISUPOV: PAST & PRESENT

2022 | Solo Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary

Ceramic sculptures are presented with both a multi-dimensional, mixed-media wall installation and independent pedestal-based works. Isupov and Ferrin Contemporary have had exhibitions internationally since 1996. This was the artist’s third solo show in our North Adams gallery location.

Both of Isupov’s 2022 exhibitions include works in porcelain and mixed-media drawings produced at Project Art in Cummington, MA.

Past & Present

Full Moon Addiction

Like An Eternity

Marriage for the Ages

LARGE WORKS, INSTALLATIONS, & TABLEAUS

Challenged by opportunities to expand his scale, Isupov’s recent exhibition Alliances featured a wall relief sculpture using the carved plywood printing plate (left) and the resulting print (right) bringing together ceramic sculpture, assemblage, and printmaking practices to show the full scope of creative versatility and process. Towering larger than life figures and animated life size tableaus anchor his solo exhibitions in galleries and museums.

Lips Eyes Ear Eyebrow

Woodblock & Print | Installation

Directions

Coffee & Milk

On the Way

PUBLIC ARTWORK

MAIN STREET | CUMMINGTON, MA

Fire sculptures, public art, engage the public in community based projects.

Visible from Main Street, Isupov currently has 3 public works on view along Main Street in Cummington, MA and more around the world. Works are visible by car or foot, neighboring other temporary and permanent public works on Main Street as part of the Cummington Cultural District Art Walk.

To learn more about the Cummington Cultural District and other public art sculptures along Main Street: @cummmingtonculturaldistrict

Earth & Fire | Fire Sculptures

MORE ABOUT THE FIRE SCULPTURES

Everything is Upside Down

Miss Comet

Branch Dragon

WORKS ON PAPER | PRINTS

Sergei worked on a series of prints at Littleton Studios in 2000 and produced the limited edition prints shown in the galleries below.

Each Littleton Print is a Vitreograph, Siligraphy print from glass plate, using Digital Transfer techniques.

The printing process varies from edition to edition. The labor involved in the process, the quality of the paper, and the edition size all affect the price of the print.

VIEW MORE WORKS ON PAPER

ABOUT

SERGEI ISUPOV

Sergei Isupov Artist Portrait, 2021, Photo Credit: John Polak

ARCHIVE OF WORKS

SERGEIISUPOV.COM

WORKSHOPS

CV

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

The Androgyny series of heads and busts, often with surrealistic features and complex facial expressions, was first presented by Ferrin Gallery in 2008 (Pittsfield, MA Location). The works and show traveled to Mesa Contemporary Arts Center (Mesa, AZ) and the Daum Museum of Art (Sedalia, MO) in 2009, and select pieces remain in the artist’s archive for use in contemporary installations as well as available for collections and client acquisitions.

2009 | “Androgyny: New Work by Sergei Isupov”, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO, October 3 – December 6, 2009

2009 | “Androgyny”, Mesa Contemporary Arts Center, Mesa, AZ, April 10 – August 2, 2009

2008 | “Androgyny, The Preview, Solo Exhibition: Sculpture, Painting, Drawing”; Ferrin Gallery, Pittsfield, MA

FIGURATIVE WORKS

“Art is a life style for me. Everything that surrounds and excites me is automatically processed and transformed into the final result: an artwork. It is fascinating to watch the transitions from life to art. The essence of my work is not in the medium or the creative process, but the in 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.

I find ceramic to be the most versatile material and it is well suited to the expression of my ideas. I consider sculpture to be a canvas for my paintings. All plastic, graphic and painting elements of the piece function as complementary parts of the work.

In this series of two-legged figures, Statuettes, the form is classical but the characters are comical. I like the contrast of serious to humorous – the front is cartoon like but the back of each figure features an intimate painting of the being’s spirit.

While each one expresses an individual personality or character, as a group, they become a population, inhabitants of my imaginary world or visitors from my imagination.”

HUMANIMAL SERIES

Humanimals, transform anthropomorphic sculptures that explore human relationships by blending the expression and gesture of the combined species.

“The animal faces and features represent the beast or natural animal instincts that are often in conflict with reason and intellect.

The hand represents the hand of a human or god – both a comforting support for humanity and a force of opposition or challenge to animal instincts.

The two sculptures explore these ideas of opposing forces of nature and humanity, man and beast, integral and constant throughout life. There is nothing literal intended in the choice of imagery or narrative. The images and expressions are of male/female/animal – symbolic, metaphoric, and intended to provide for individual interpretation. ”

EXHIBITIONS

FEATURED & PAST EXHIBITIONS

Sergei Isupov, Moments from Eternity Banner

Sergei Isupov: MOMENTS FROM ETERNITY

2025 | Solo Exhibition at District Clay Center | Washington, DC

April 25 – May 25, 2025

View the exhibition page HERE

“Sergei Isupov: Ancestor”, Exhibition in the Anderson Gallery at Bridgewater State University, November 1 through February 18, 2025

SERGEI ISUPOV: Ancestor

2024 | Solo Exhibition at Anderson Gallery at Bridgewater State University | Bridgewater, MA

November 1 – February 18, 2025

View the exhibition page HERE

50 Years in the Making: Alumni Exhibition at The Clay Studio, June 13th – September 1st, 2024, featuring Sergei Isupov, Paul Scott, and Lauren Mabry

50 Years in the Making – Alumni Exhibition

2024 | Group Exhibition at The Clay Studio | Philadelphia, PA

featuring work by Paul Scott, Sergei Isupov, and Lauren Mabry

June 13th through Sep 1st, 2024

This Alumni Exhibition showcases artwork to reflect the current practice of the This Alumni Exhibition showcases artwork to reflect the current practice of the over 150 artist who have participated in The Clay Studio’s Resident Artist Program, Guest Artist Program, and Associate Artist Program over the 50 years since its founding.

View the exhibition page HERE

Kadri Pärnamets, “Fragments of Waves”, 2024, porcelain, slip, glaze

Sergei Isupov & Kadri Pärnamets in CLAYTOPIA Summer Festival | Guldagergaard, Skælskør, Denmark

2024 | Group Exhibition at Claytopia at Guldagergaard | Skælskør, Denmark

featuring work by Sergei Isupov & Kadri Pärnamets

July 10th through August 10th, 2024

Claytopia is Guldagergaard’s initiative geared towards engaging the public, offering a unique space within the beautiful park surrounding Guldagergaard.

Among Claytopia’s activities are outdoor art exhibitions, concerts, discussion salons, and a design boutique.

View the exhibition page HERE

Ferrin Contemporary presents Paul Scott in “Our America/Whose America?”. Installation for NCECA Richmond, 2024 at the Wickham House at The Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA. Image courtesy of The Valentine Museum.

OUR AMERICA/WHOSE AMERICA?

2024 | Group Exhibition in the Wickham House at the Valentine Museum | Richmond, VA

February 20, 2024 – April 21, 2024

Our America/Whose America? Is a “call and response” exhibition between contemporary artists and historic ceramic objects.

View the exhibition page HERE

Ferrin Contemporary “Our America/Whose America?” Dining Room Installation at the Wickham House, Richmond, VA, 2024

Sergei Isupov, “Ancestor”, 2023, oil ink print on paper, 98 x 98″. Photo by John Polak Photography.

ALLIANCES

2024 | Solo Exhibition at Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, Keene State College | Keene, NH

October 25, 2023 – December 9, 2023

Sergei Isupov’s 22nd Solo Exhibition, Featuring artworks from the artist’s archive and new productions from his studio.

View the exhibition page HERE

Installation Title Wall, featuring the artist’s tools and drawings from Sergei Isupov’s “Lips, Eyes, Ears, Eyebrows” and works in progress drawing series. Sculptures include “Crazy”, “Duel” (2006), and “Midnight Son” (2009). Photo by John Polak Photography. “SERGEI ISUPOV: Alliances”, Exhibition Installation at Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, Keene State College, Keene, NH, October 25-December 6, 2023.

Ferrin Contemporary | July 15 – September 2, 2023

ARE WE THERE YET?

2023 | Group Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA

October 25, 2023 – December 9, 2023

Isupov and Ferrin Contemporary have had exhibitions internationally since 1996, including key exhibitions and monumental installations that display various themes and series, which Isupov builds upon and pulls from to compose new environments and show content.

Isupov’s exhibitions include works in porcelain and mixed-media drawings produced at Project Art in Cummington, MA.

View the exhibition page HERE

Are We There Yet? 2023, Chris Antemann, Sergei Isupov, Lauren Mabry

Sergei Isupov: Past & Present, 2022, Installation View

PAST & PRESENT

2022 Solo Exhibition | Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA

Sergei Isupov: Past & Present, 2022, Installation View

CURRENT + RECENT EXHIBITIONS

Our America/Whose America? Activation at the Wickham House, Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA

Ferrin Contemporary at The Wickham House
The Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA
February 20 – April 21, 2024

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

Sergei Isupov: MOMENTS FROM ETERNITY

District Clay Center, Washington, DC
April 25 – May 25, 2025

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

SERGEI ISUPOV: Ancestor

Anderson Gallery, Bridgewater State University
November 1 – February 24, 2025

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

Our America/Whose America? at Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA

Ferrin Contemporary at The Wickham House
The Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA
February 20 – April 21, 2024

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

SERGEI ISUPOV: Alliances

Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery at Keene State College | Keene, NH
October 25 – December 9, 2023

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

ARE WE THERE YET?

Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
July 15 – September 2, 2023

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

FIGURING SPACE

The Clay Studio | Philadelphia, PA
January 12, 2023 – April 16, 2023

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

Sergei Isupov: PAST & PRESENT

Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA
May 7 – July 9, 2022

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

NEWS

NEWS & FEATURES

What is New in the World of Contemporary Ceramic Art? October 19, 2024 | 10-11:30am EST

What is New in the World of Contemporary Ceramic Art? October 19, 2024 | 10-11:30am...

SERGEI ISUPOV | Workshop & Demonstration | NOV 8th – 10th, 2024

SERGEI ISUPOV | Workshop & Demonstration November 8th – 10th, 2024 During the 2024 Hilltown 6...

Sergei Isupov & Kadri Pärnamets in CLAYTOPIA Summer Festival | Guldagergaard, Skælskør, Denmark

Sergei Isupov & Kadri Pärnamets in Claytopia is Guldagergaard’s initiative geared towards engaging the public,...

Ferrin Contemporary Presents | SERGEI ISUPOV | The Road to Cummington at Project Art

Sergei Isupov | The Road to Cummington In-person artist talks At Project Art at 54 Main Street during...

ARE WE THERE YET? Featured in the Berkshire Eagle

'Are We There Yet?' celebrates the history and artists of Ferrin Contemporary Berkshire Eagle, Jennifer...

PODCAST: Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Hosted by Ben Carter featuring Sergei Isupov 464:...

Sergei Isupov and family featured in The World

A family of artists expresses how the war in Ukraine impacts their creative work The...

The Clay Studio Presents: Clay & Conversations Online Lectures with Cristina Córdova & Sergei Isupov

The Clay Studio Presents: MARCH & APRIL 2023 VIEW SERIES HERE Online Lectures with Cristina...

Sergei Isupov Interview Featured in the JRA Quarterly Winter 2023

IN CONVERSATION: ARTIST SERGEI ISUPOV ON IMMIGRATION, EDUCATION, AND THE SURREALITY OF EVERYDAY LIFE Interview...

NEW YEAR’S WORKSHOP AT THE CLAY STUDIO: Facial Features with Sergei Isupov

Workshop with Sergei Isupov & Jonathan Christensen Caballero Jan 13-Jan 13 | 1:00 PM-4:00 PMFriday...

OUR AMERICA/WHOSE AMERICA? Featured in the Berkshire Eagle

Artistic Landscape: Turning the lens on mass market ceramics Artists respond to problematic histories, racism...

Making History: Recent Acquisitions from the Permanent Collection

Summer 2022 - Spring 2023 Fuller Craft Museum 455 Oak Street Brockton, MA Featuring work...

PUBLICATIONS

Shop Available Catalogs

View Select on ISSUU

Sergei Isupov: Ancestor, 2024 Catalog Cover Page

SERGEI ISUPOV: ANCESTOR Exhibition Catalog

DESCRIPTION

Catalog release: November 7, 2024.
27-page, full-color PDF catalog
Installation Images & Artwork Highlights, Images by Sergei Isupov, John Polak Photography, and Ferrin Contemporary staff.
Copyright© 2024 and published by Ferrin Contemporary, Cummington, MA
Designed by Isabel Twanmo.

Special thanks to Jay Block, associate director of collections and exhibitions at Bridgewater State University.

Sergei Isupov: ALLIANCES Exhibition Catalog

Buy now

SERGEI ISUPOV: ALLIANCES Exhibition Catalog

$5.00

DESCRIPTION

Catalog release: December 1, 2023.
15-page, full-color catalog
Installation Images & Artwork Highlights, All images by John Polak Photography
Exhibition Essay by Leslie Ferrin, Show Statements & Editorial by Ferrin Contemporary
Copyright© 2023 and published by Thorne-Sagendorph Gallery, Keene State College, Keene, NH
Design by Erica Pritchett.

Special thanks to co-curators, Paul McMullan, professor at Keene State College and Leslie Ferrin, director, Ferrin Contemporary and for editorial support by Alexandra Jelleberg, associate director, Ferrin Contemporary.

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.

FREE ON ISSUU

DESCRIPTION:

- Catalog release: November 1, 2022.
- 26-page, full-color catalog
- Installation Images & Artwork Highlights
- Exhibition Release, Show Statements, & Artist Bio-CV

VIEW CATALOG ON ISSUU

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

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Collection Focus: Sergei Isupov at RAM

$5.00

DESCRIPTION:

Published in 2014 by Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI
Essays and images explore the artist and his place at RAM and in the larger universe of art.
Captured Imagination: The Enigma of Sergei Isupov by Anthony Stellaccio
Collection Focus: Sergei Isupov at RAM by Lena Vigna
A Conversation between Leslie Ferrin and Bruce W. Pepich about Sergei Isupov

28-page, full-color exhibition catalog

SERGEI ISUPOV ALLIANCES, 2023 Exhibition Catalog, cover. Design by Erica Pritchett. Copyright© 2023 and published by Thorne-Sagendorph Gallery, Keene State College, Keene, NH

SERGEI ISUPOV: ALLIANCES Exhibition Catalog

PURCHASE THE CATALOG HERE SERGEI ISUPOV: ALLIANCES Exhibition Catalog Thorne/Sagendorph Art Gallery Ferrin Contemporary is proud to present new works from internationally renowned sculptor Sergei Isupov. SERGEI ISUPOV: ALLIANCES 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 worksContinue reading →

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 →

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

May

2017

CHRIS ANTEMANN

Upcoming Show Feature:

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

ARTWORK

AVAILABLE ARTWORKS & SERIES

+ View Antemann’s Collaborations with Meissen HERE

FROM THE STUDIO

Work produced in Chris Antemann’s US studio, including installations in Museums

A Little Madness

Chris Antemann
“A Little Madness”
2023
porcelain, china paint, decals, luster
25 x 18 x 16″

DETAILS

Love in a Time of Chaos

Chris Antemann
“Love in a Time of Chaos”
2023
porcelain, china paint, decals, luster
18 x 35 x 15″

DETAILS

Cameo

Chris Antemann
“Cameo”
2024
porcelain, decals, enamels, luster, epoxy
27 x 16 x 15”

Chris Antemann upends not only the traditional form of the Portland Vase but also the famous Bouquet de la Dauphine made by Vincennes, the Royal French manufactory and precursor to Sèvres. The Oregon-based ceramist, who has completed residencies at both Meissen and Sèvres, is a skillful disruptor of historical ceramic traditions. The title is a play on words as the Portland Vase plays a cameo role, superseded by the cameo reliefs refashioned as three-dimensional figurines. Referencing a surtout de table, an ornamental centerpiece displayed in a formal dining room, the forms and pastel colors of her work evoke the exuberance of the 18th-century Rococo style. However, Antemann’s tableau is very much part of the 21st century, critiquing and challenging contemporary gender politics.

DETAILS

Embrace

Chris Antemann
“Embrace”
2023
porcelain, decals, enamels, luster
16 x 12 x 6″

DETAILS

Kissing Booth

Chris Antemann
“Kissing Booth”
2023
porcelain, decals, enamels, luster
18 x 11 x 6″

DETAILS

Flames and Feathers I and II (A Pair of Tulip Vases)

Chris Antemann
Flames and Feathers I and II (A Pair of Tulip Vases from A Place for Flowers Series)”
2022
Porcelain
Right Facing (I): 17.5 x 15 x 13”, Left Facing (II): 18.5 x 12 x 13”.

“Inspired by Anna Pavord’s book, The Tulip: The Story of a Flower that has made Men Mad. In particular the tale of the broken tulip, which was the most sought after and cherished. These tragic beauties, afflicted by viral infections that alter pigments in their petals making them bloom in flames and feathers, wilt early and eventually die out. They were named Sempor Augustus from Latin ‘forever exalted’.

These images from Anna Pavord’s book The Tulip: The Story of a Flower that has made Men Mad, were used in my research for the Pair of Tulip Vases.”

—Chris Antemann, 2022

DETAILS

Lovers Vase in Blue

Chris Antemann
“Lovers Vase in Blue”
2022
porcelain
19.5 x 11 x 10″

Inspired by one of the Vase Duplessis à Enfants 1753 Vincennes Porcelain Manufactory in the Frick Collection. Using the niche created in the original design as a space for 3-Dimensional figures to take over.

—Chris Antemann, 2022

DETAILS

FEATURED PAST INSTALLATIONS IN MUSEUMS

A Stage for Dessert

Chris Antemann
“A Stage for Dessert”
2022
30 x 24 x 24″
porcelain, china paint, decals, luster.

Installation at Hillwood Estate & Gardens
“The Luxury of Clay: Porcelain Past and Present”

“Chris Antemann’s porcelain centerpiece, filled with eighteenth- century-style ceramic sweets, takes inspiration from the garden sculptures and eighteenth-century design of Hillwood’s French parterre. As with the dining room table display, here Antemann references eighteenth-century dining culture and the porcelain centerpieces commonly used as table decoration by European elites. Antemann integrates porcelain figures into her reconception of the French parterre. “I imagined what lives were like in the eighteenth century, what these figures would have been doing, what the collectors of these figures would have been doing,” she said. “My centerpiece is a seductive playground for the porcelain figure; they are not static on the base, but in the world, playing and enjoying the environment.” The tablewares from Hillwood’s collection on the breakfast room table include porcelain from a dessert service made by the Jacob Petit manufactory in France around 1835 (acc. no. 24.120), French glassware dating to the 1700s (acc. nos. 23.312–315), and porcelain and silver-gilt flatware made in Russia in the 1800s (acc. no. 25.479).“

–Dr. Rebecca Tilles, associate curator of 18th century French and Western European Fine and decorative arts, Hillwood Estate & Gardens

–Images courtesy of Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, photographed by Erik Kvalsvik

DETAILS

Dining in the Orangery

Chris Antemann
“Dining in the Orangery”
2019
30 x 62 x 20″
porcelain, china paint, decals, luster.

When art becomes epicurean, voracious, pie-eyed with the pleasures of the palate—inventing dishes, desserts, pieces montées or banquet scenes—sinking its teeth into an examination of our relationship with food (guilty, sensual, problematic)—we have Céramiques gourmandes, an exhibition cooked up by the Fondation Bernardaud, featuring fourteen international artists with a taste for ceramic: the crème de la crème!

Fired clay and fine fare have long been companions. Gustatory pleasure has inspired artists in every era: what we eat says so much about humankind, its environment and its excesses. The feasts we see here are technical feats, to be savored visually, virtually. Like a mouthwatering promise. You can almost hear the “mmmm”s, “yum”s, and “more”s.

In the 18th century, during the vogue for naturalism, ceramicists played with trompe l’oeil. Fantasies in faience and porcelain, decorated plates or trick displays, were wildly popular through Europe—England, Hungary, Germany, and France. There were reproductions of radishes, artichoke quarters, and hard-boiled eggs, sometimes doused in mayonnaise. Kilns yielded compotiers full of olives and bouchées à la reine. There were terrines in the form of pheasants, ducks, roosters; plates disguised as hearts of lettuce or bunches of asparagus; bonbonnières as lemons. Bestiary and kitchen garden were called upon to decorate festal tables.

Delectation is always a question of taste. Gluttons are scourged; gourmets’ refinement encouraged. What we eat reveals what we are. And in our consumer societies, now grown obese, the question of food is at the heart of sanitary, political, and ecological issues.

DETAILS

An Occasion to Gather

Chris Antemann
“An Occasion to Gather”
2021-2022
installation variable
porcelain, china paint, decals, luster.

“Chris Antemann’s elaborate porcelain centerpiece— depicting a host of partially clad revelers gathered around a table under an impressive porcelain temple—is a celebration of the eighteenth-century banqueting craze among European elites. Antemann takes inspiration from historical engravings and eighteenth-century Meissen centerpieces, including the Temple of Love, designed by Johann Joachim Kändler while the factory’s chief modeler. Antemann’s playful porcelain fantasy revives the materials and methods used in the eighteenth century to produce figurines while presenting a new narrative invoking contemporary morality and relationships in the age-old matters of romance and seduction. The wares from Hillwood’s collection on the dining room table include porcelain from an elaborate dessert service made by the Jacob Petit manufactory in France around 1835 (acc. no. 24.120), French glassware dating to the 1700s (acc. nos. 23.312–315), and flatware made by François-Dominique Naudin in Paris around 1819 (acc. nos. 12.289, 2021.1). The linen tablecloth was made by the French firm D. Porthault, which generously gifted it to Hillwood in 2020.”

–Dr. Rebecca Tilles, associate curator of 18th century French and Western European Fine and decorative arts, Hillwood Estate & Gardens

–Images courtesy of Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, photographed by Erik Kvalsvik & Ferrin Contemporary

An Occasion to Gather in Hillwood’s Dining Room was installed on February 15, 2022.

“The 10 years of collaboration with the highly skilled and talented artisans at MEISSEN gave me the courage and technical experience to complete the largest and most complex centerpiece which I have attempted thus far. I am grateful to Hillwood for offering their support and giving me the honor and privilege to make this personal dream and challenge come to fruition.

Channeling Marjorie, working with Rebecca drawing inspiration from Marjorie’s collection, interior decorating themes, furniture, upholstery choices/colors… that deep pink, the rug of roses, the gardens and the statues that she collected to inhabit them. All this swirling in the back of my mind while planning the most ambitious sculptures. Knowing that they would be placed in these spaces, in the breakfast room with the chandelier that belonged to Catherine the Great and Marjorie’s orchid collection… the hand-embroidered lily-of-the-valley in green on white napkins beside the Jacob Petite French dessert plates.”

-Chris Antemann

DETAILS

ABOUT

CHRIS ANTEMANN

CHRISANTEMANN.COM

BIO

ABOUT

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 18^th 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.

ON HER WORK

Inspired by 18th C. porcelain figurines, Chris Antemann’s work employs a unity of design and concept to simultaneously examine and parody male and female relationship roles. Characters, themes and incidents build upon each other, effectively forming their own language that speaks about domestic rites, social etiquette, and taboos. Themes from the classics and the romantics are given a contemporary edge; elaborate dinner parties, picnic luncheons and ornamental gardens set the stage for her twisted tales to unfold.

ON MEISSEN WORK

The pieces Chris is making in the Meissen Art Campus use the literary technique of a frame narrative, a story within a story, to build relationships and create layers of information between the sculptural aspects and the painted surfaces. The main story is presented in the guise of the 18th century porcelain figurine as a context, which frames a parody or second narrative between the sculpted characters. Other stories and in many cases, the sources of inspiration for the piece are painted into the scene in elaborate detail.

EXHIBITIONS

ON VIEW & UPCOMING

Chris Antemann: An Occasional Craving at the Dixon, Banner, 2025

CHRIS ANTEMANN: An Occasional Craving

Dixon Gallery & Gardens

Memphis, TN

February 19 – April 6, 2025

VIEW THE EXHIBITION PAGE

RECENT/PAST EXHIBITIONS

Chris Antemann: An Occasional Craving

Dixon Gallery & Gardens
February 9 – April 6, 2025

Musée de la Halle Saint Pierre | Paris, France
September 20, 2023 – August 14, 2024
Featuring Chris Antemann, Crystal Morey, & Mara Superior

Mint Museum | Charlotte, NC
2023

Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
July 15 – September 2, 2023

By Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens
Washington, D.C. | February 19 – June 26, 2022

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art | Hartford, CT
February 29 – January 3, 2021

CHRIS ANTEMANN in Exposition Ceramiques Gourmandes

Fondation Bernardaud, France
June 21, 2019 – October 31, 2020

ABOUT FACE: Contemporary Ceramic Sculpture

TOURING EXHIBITION
June 20 – August 30, 2020

THE FRICK PITTSBURGH 7227 Reynolds St., Pittsburgh, PA February 17–May 27, 2018 ABOUT THE EXHIBITION In 2017, twenty contemporary artists were invited to respond to and produce new works that...

MFA Boston | Boston, MA
February 20 – July 14, 2013

PUBLICATIONS

Released September 15, 2023
Edited by Anne Richard Bilingual (French / English)
250 pages
Shaped cover 28 x 24.5 cm
Published by HEY! PUBLISHING

Long considered a minor art because of its particular status at the crossroads of art and craftsmanship, ceramics has emancipated itself artistically by making precisely this hybrid position the basis of its renewal. The truly alchemical dimension of the fire arts lends itself wonderfully to blurring and crossing boundaries.

HEY! CÉRAMIQUE.S Exhibition Catalog

Purchase the catalog here

HEY! CÉRAMIQUES Catalog Cover “HEY! CÉRAMIQUE.S” Musee de la Halle Saint Pierre, Paris, France, September 20, 2023 to August 14, 2024.

NEWS & FEATURES

MUSEUM NEWS | HEY! Ceramique.s – Paris, France | Chris Antemann, Crystal Morey, Mara Superior

HEY! CÉRAMIQUE.S Paris, France HEY! CÉRAMIQUE.S Musée de la Halle Saint Pierre | Paris, France on view through August 14, 2024 In this newsletter we introduce you to our colleague in...

'Are We There Yet?' celebrates the history and artists of Ferrin Contemporary Berkshire Eagle, Jennifer Huberdeau July 28, 2023 A JOURNEY IN CERAMICS NORTH ADAMS — Sometimes, the only way...

Bray Benefit ONLINE Auction July 14 – July 21 Chris Antemann's work "Kissing Flora", straight from the artist's studio, will be part of the yearly fundraiser for The Archie Bray, in Helena...

Chris Antemann in The Art of Food at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Portland, OR

Chris Antemann's Work Featured in In its most everyday sense, food is a physical necessity, yet its overall significance goes far beyond sustenance. Food is integral to our communities, relationships,...

Chris Antemann in Exposition Ceramiques Gourmandes at Fondation Bernardaud, France

Exposition Céramiques Gourmandes FONDATION BERNARDAUD | Limoges, France June 21, 2019 - October 31, 2020 When art becomes epicurean, voracious, pie-eyed with the pleasures of the palate—inventing dishes, desserts, pieces...

REVIVE, REMIX, RESPOND The Frick Pittsburgh 7227 Reynolds Street, Pittsburgh Group show of contemporary artists who are breathing new life into the ceramic medium by reinvigorating age-old motifs, processes, and...

Revive, Remix, Respond at The Frick Pittsburgh

Revive, Remix, Respond: Contemporary Ceramic Artists and The Frick Pittsburgh February 17–May 27, 2018 Revive, Remix, Respond Showcases contemporary artists who are breathing new life into the ceramic medium by...

VIDEOS FEATURING CHRIS ANTEMANN

The Luxury of Clay Lecture Series | The Porcelain Sickness in the Gilded Age with Rebecca Tilles

Rebecca Tilles, curator, explores the porcelain collections of Consuelo Vanderbilt (1877-1964), Anna Thompson Dodge (1871-1970), and Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887-1973), Hillwood’s founder.

The Luxury of Clay Lecture Series | Conversation with Artist Chris Antemann

In this lecture celebrating the installation of two elaborate centerpieces in the dining and breakfast rooms as part of “The Luxury of Clay: Porcelain Past and Present,” artist Chris Antemann describes the development of her ceramic artwork inspired by eighteenth-century porcelain figures. She will discuss how she drew inspiration from Hillwood’s French parterre, porcelain collection, and interiors, as well as many other sources for her sculptural tableaux and complex process of constructing them. Learn how Chris crafts new narratives from historical forms, informed by her ten-year collaboration on unique and limited edition artworks with MEISSEN, Europe’s oldest porcelain manufactory.

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

May

2017

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA

ON VIEW

EL PUENTE

John & Robyn Horn Gallery

At Penland School of Craft

Penland, NC

April 1 – June 7, 2025

Featuring work by Cristina Córdova

ARTWORK

FEATURED ARTWORK

EVA XV

ON EVA & MATERIAL EXPERIMENTATION

Cristina Córdova, Photo by Chad Weeden.

I have been sculpting my daughter since she was 9. This 15 year old version of Eva is unglazed and finished with burnished earth pigments from the island of Puerto Rico mixed with casein, lime, and oxides. They came specifically from two areas, one in Fajardo near the coast, where the rainforest is, and one from Orocovis in the mountainous center. Written on her back are the words “de monte y mar” ( “from mountain and sea” ) in gold, a phrase from the song Verde luz by El Topo (Antonio Cabal Vale), which became a symbol of national Puerto Rican pride and an anti-colonialist anthem.

In my practice, the image of Eva is the embodiment of change and possibility. It speaks to the inevitability of transience and the inherited threads of code that perpetuate both genes and identity. This piece seeks to perform both as a symbol and a relic by holding in its materiality a part of the Island that has thematically bound this whole series through the years, exploring the riches and vulnerabilities of this small Caribbean nation that is my home.

“EVA XV”
2022
unglazed: finished with burnished earth pigments from the island of Puerto Rico mixed with casein, lime, and oxides
60 x 18 x 22″

DETAILS

ADDITIONAL ARTWORKS & INSTALLATIONS

EL PUENTE | Group Exhibition | 2025

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?

DETAILS

ALTAR | Installation

“ALTAR”
2019
ceramic and photograph installation,
83 x 75 x 82″

DETAILS

JUNGLA | Solo Exhibition | 2018

At its most basic level Jungla refers to a region of dense, intractable wilderness that sustains an ongoing evolutionary dance governed by uncivilized forces. This tropical landscape of my youth is a beacon to an identity, tying me back to a specific geography and the sediment of generations.

DETAILS

COSMOLOGÍA ISLEÑA | Installation

“Cosmología isleña (Island Cosmology)”
2021
ceramic, metal, resin, wood
figure and pedestal: 90 x 45 x 44″
figure assembled with Plantains: 60 x 27 x 26″

Theological cosmologies explain the origin, evolution, and destiny of the universe through the lens of a specific religion or culture. It is deities who are the center of these stories, embodying qualities that resonate with a community’s shared history and helping them make sense of the world. Cosmología Isleña imagines such a deity amidst an astronomical expanse. A symbol intended to counter the undercurrents of a nation’s collective trauma.

DETAILS

DEL BALCÓN | Solo Exhibition | 2018

Del balcón, a solo exhibition of new work by Cristina Córdova, featuring large and small figurative sculptures exploring the relationship between the human and geographic connections within her native Puerto Rican landscape.

Working directly from the human form, Córdova’s hand builds often life-size ceramic figures that gaze at, or through the viewer, asking them to consider what’s behind the eyes. A reference to landscape, both large and small, is introduced, creating tropical tableaux for the figure to reside within.

DETAILS

MIXED MEDIA | 2D WORKS

ABOUT

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA

CRISTINACÓRDOVA.COM

BIO

CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF FIGURATIVE CERAMICS

ABOUT

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

Cristina Córdova is a contemporary artist and teacher native to Puerto Rico. She completed her BA at the University of Puerto Rico, and received her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.

Cristina Córdova is featured in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Figge Museum, the Everson Museum, the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, the Asheville Art Museum and the Mobile Art Museum, among others. She is the recipient of the Maxwell-Hanrahan Craft Award for 2024, the Herbert Adams Memorial Medal from The National Sculpture Society in 2023, the NC Arts Council Fellowship Grant, a Virginia Groot Foundation Recognition Grant, several International Association of Art Critics of Puerto Rico awards, and a United States Artist Fellowship award. In 2021, Cordova published Mastering Sculpture: The Figure In Clay by Quarry Books. Her work is widely published in all major ceramics and arts media including the cover of Ceramics Monthly, and was featured by Craft in America on PBS in their episode on identity.

Cristina has taught and demonstrated around the world. Her residencies, workshops, and classes include Harvard University, the University of California, the University of Nebraska, the University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Ceramistas de Reñaca in Chile, the Australian National University in Canberra, Gaya Ceramics in Bali, Penland School of Crafts (NC), Haystack Mountain School (ME), Santa Fe Clay (NM), Odyssey Center for Ceramics (NC), and Anderson Ranch. She currently lives and works in Penland, North Carolina.

Cristina Córdova is represented by Ferrin Contemporary.

ON HER WORK

Growing up in Puerto Rico, I was immersed in a culture alive with history, tradition, and contradictions. The island is a place where beauty and struggle live side by side, where the rhythm of tradition beats against the undercurrent of its colonial history. My work reflects that tension: a deep connection to heritage as a living, breathing force, a language of lineage, and an equally persistent urge to question its confines.

The body is at the center of everything I do. It is both subject and medium, a map and a mirror, carrying the weight of its own history while offering a stage for universal themes to unfold in new or forgotten ways. There is a kind of urgency in sculpting the figure—its scale, its placement, its surfaces—all of it building an experience that feels as much lived as observed. Through these forms, grounded in my inherited cultural symbology, I try to hold on to seismic moments that shift the ground beneath me, giving shape to the ephemeral, preserving not just memories but the sensations they leave behind.

Sculpting is, for me, an act of preservation and discovery. When I sculpt my daughter’s body I am marking a moment in time and a version of her that will never again be. And at the same time I am collaborating with some unknown force or muse to give rise to a unique expression beyond simple documentation. Clay is the perfect ally in this, an ancient, generous instigator of creativity, connection, and transformation, always ready to take on the imprint of human intention and emotion yet with its own voice and discoveries to unearth. I have been grateful for this material, daily, throughout decades.

In the end, I make these figures not to provide answers but to ask questions—about identity, about memory, about the places and stories that shape us. Each curve and crease carries the weight of my own culture, the complexities of being Puerto Rican, but also something much more universal. In the end, the body becomes a kind of bridge, connecting what is specific and personal to what is shared and enduring.

Archive & Artist Site HERE

Cristina Córdova, “Desde mi Balcón”, 2021, ceramic and metal, 33 x 14.5 x 10″

ON THE BALCONY

The balcony is an iconic location in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. It offers a momentary escape from the domestic realm, a furtive viewpoint to survey the world from above. Balcony dwellers are part of the street insofar as they can watch life with its protests and processions, yet they are separate and contained in their own sheltered moment. After creating several of her own, the balcony has started to become an archetype in Cristina Cordóva’s studio. “Beyond describing a specific narrative,” says Cordóva, “I am interested in staging a composition that triggers an emotional charge through the recognition of certain repeating elements as part of a series.” Those elements include architectural components, the nude figure and unruly foliage, symbols related to the experience of femininity in a religious and masculine culture, notions of exposure and vulnerability, and the psychology of place.

Cristina Córdova, “Altar”, 2019, detail, ceramic and photograph installation, 83 x 75 x 82″

ON PHOTOGRAPHY

Cristina Cordóva considers photography a background practice to her primary focus of sculpture. She employs it to expand the context of the figure by engaging the wall behind or the pedestal underneath it. It all began when after a few material experiments and some research, Cordóva started looking at old landscape photographs of Puerto Rico. She came across the work of Jack Delano, a Ukrainian born, American photographer who wound up in Puerto Rico through the Farm Security Administration. After becoming the official government photographer for Puerto Rico he took innumerable heroic images of daily Puerto Rican life, rural and city-center alike. Cordova began combining Delano’s copyright-free images with her own photography. “I persist on the idea that I’m referencing the viewpoint of someone I know through these images,” she explains. “I’m trying to capture or build a sense of veracity through the careful selection of real places portrayed in current and historical photographs. By combining them with my sculpture I’m proposing a new relationship, a fantasy that is grounded in reality, a feigned diorama of sorts in the museum of my imagination.”

EXHIBITIONS

FEATURED EXHIBITIONS

Cristina Cordova, El Puente teaser, 2024

EL PUENTE

2024 | Group Exhibition in the John & Robyn Horn Gallery | At Penland School of Craft | Penland, NC

September 24, 2024 – December 7, 2024

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.

View the exhibition page HERE

Ferrin Contemporary “Our America/Whose America?” Anteroom Stair hall Installation at the Wickham House, Richmond, VA, 2024

OUR AMERICA/WHOSE AMERICA?

2024 | Group Exhibition in the Wickham House at the Valentine Museum | Richmond, VA

February 20, 2024 – April 21, 2024

Our America/Whose America? Is a “call and response” exhibition between contemporary artists and historic ceramic objects.

View the exhibition page HERE

Are We There Yet?

2023 | at Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA

ARE WE THERE YET? is a celebration of Ferrin Contemporary’s 40+ years as leaders in the field of modern and contemporary ceramics.

View the exhibition page HERE

Figuring Space

2022 | at The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA

The Clay Studio Presents FIGURING SPACE, an Exhibition of Full-scale Figurative Sculptures by a Dozen Top Ceramic Artists Based in America

View the exhibition page HERE

IN DIALOGUE: Cristina Córdova & Kukuli Velarde

2021 | Duo Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA

Feature of works by two artists who share several overlapping identities as Latina sculptors working in the figural tradition. Each explores subjects drawn from both their cultural histories and their roles as mothers, daughters and parents of young women documenting their own and their subjects’ generational changes.

View the exhibition page HERE

Cristina Córdova, “Altar”, 2019, ceramic and photograph installation, 83 x 75 x 82″

Cristina Córdova, IN DIALOGUE installation view, 2021

Cristina Córdova, “Desde mi Balcón”, 2021, ceramic and metal, 33 x 14.5 x 10″ – side view

NATURE/NURTURE

2020 & 2021 | Group Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA

Virtual Conference at NCECA Rivers, Reflections, and Reinvention | 2021

Group exhibition of twelve contemporary female artists invited to explore the influence of gender and its impact on their practice.

View the exhibition page HERE

Cristina Córdova, “Cuentos del matorral I & II”, 2020, 24 x 14 x 9″. ceramic, underglaze, glaze.

Cristina Córdova, “Vestigio”, 2020, 16 x 29.5 x 9″. ceramic, underglaze, glaze.

ON NATURE/NURTURE

I was born into a household that both challenged and upheld gender archetypes. This simultaneity created a fluid identity in my creative perspective that has moved me to engage with a wide spectrum of narrative embodiments from the sexually untethered and universal to the absolutely feminine. I am human, I am Puerto Rican, I am a woman. Each of these breaks into a thousand fractals that create the prism through which my work comes into the world.

FC Artist News | Cristina Córdova | PBS Craft in America | New Works in Nature/Nurture

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: Del balcón

2018 | Solo Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA

New work by Cristina Córdova, featuring large and small figurative sculptures exploring the relationship between the human and geographic connections within her native Puerto Rican landscape.

View the exhibition page HERE

Cristina Córdova, “Cabeza III” 2018, ceramic, 13.5 x 9.5 x 4.75″

Cristina Córdova, “Del balcón” 2017, ceramic, steel, 28 x 25 x 12″.

Cristina Córdova, “Cabeza V” 2018, ceramic, framed photography, 24.5 x 30.5 x 8″.

Cristina Córdova, “Del balcón” 2018 – installation at Ferrin Contemporary

JUNGLA

2018 | Solo Exhibition at Alfred Ceramic Art Museum | Alfred, NY

At its most basic level Jungla refers to a region of dense, intractable wilderness that sustains an ongoing evolutionary dance governed by uncivilized forces. This tropical landscape of my youth is a beacon to an identity, tying me back to a specific geography and the sediment of generations.

View the exhibition page HERE

Cristina Córdova, ‘Altar’, 2019, ceramic and photograph installation, 83 x 75 x 82″.

Cristina Córdova, “Jungla” 2017, photographic polyptych, ceramic, resin, metal, paper, glass, plastic, wood, 78 x 18″.

Cristina Córdova, “Dame Flores” 2017, ceramic, steel, photographic images of native Puerto Rican flora in magnetic frames on steel, sculpture 57″ high, background 99 x 102″.

Cristina Córdova: Jungla installation. photo: Brian Oglesbee

ON JUNGLA

At its most basic level Jungla refers to a region of dense, intractable wilderness that sustains an ongoing evolutionary dance governed by uncivilized forces. This tropical landscape of my youth is a beacon to an identity, tying me back to a specific geography and the sediment of generations. It’s unrelenting influence speaks of luscious yet ominous constructs that echo the socio-political conditions in the Caribbean. It’s unruly mystery seeps out of its confines to also serve as metaphor for a creative process anchored in that liminal space between chaos and balance. A practice that gathers significance amidst the subconscious forces that underpin reality and the firm directives of the ego. Through image and form, Jungla explores the relationship between these human and geographic connections.

CURRENT + RECENT

Our America/Whose America? Activation at the Wickham House, Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA

Ferrin Contemporary at The Wickham House
The Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA
February 20 – April 21, 2024

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

Cristina Córdova in EL PUENTE

John & Robyn Horn Gallery at Penland School of Craft | Penland, NC
April 1 – June 7, 2025
Featuring Cristina Córdova

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: EVA XV

Figge Art Museum | Davenport IA
recent acquisition.

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

CLAYSCAPES

Everson Museum of Art | Syracuse, NY
April 13 – October 20, 2024
Featuring Cristina Córdova, Paul Scott, & Steven Young Lee

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

Our America/Whose America? at Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA

Ferrin Contemporary at The Wickham House
The Valentine Museum, Richmond, VA
February 20 – April 21, 2024

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

ARE WE THERE YET?

Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
July 15 – September 2, 2023

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

FIGURING SPACE

The Clay Studio | Philadelphia, PA
January 12, 2023 – April 16, 2023

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

IN DIALOGUE: Cristina Córdova & Kukuli Velarde

Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA
October 16 – December 31, 2021

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

NATURE/NURTURE

March 17 – May 29, 2021

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

NEWS

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA | 5-Day Virtual Live Course: Full Standing Figure | Oct 8-12 Nov 8th – 10, 2024

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA | 5-Day Virtual Live Course: Full Standing Figure October 9-12 (Wednesday-Saturday) and November 10, 2024 (SUNDAY) 10...

Cristina Córdova Awarded The Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation 2024 Award in Craft Five visionary artists and craftspeople receive $100,000 each in unrestricted...

'Are We There Yet?' celebrates the history and artists of Ferrin Contemporary Berkshire Eagle, Jennifer Huberdeau July 28, 2023 A...

The Clay Studio Presents: MARCH & APRIL 2023 VIEW SERIES HERE Online Lectures with Cristina Córdova & Sergei Isupov Clay...

The James Renwick Alliance Presents: Online Workshop & Lecture with Cristina Córdova

FEBRUARY 4-5, 2023 | (Online only) Artist Workshop Saturday, February 4 | 2:00pm - 3:30pm Hosted on Zoom $40 members ...

NATURE OF NURTURING | Notes from Director Leslie Ferrin A renewed awareness and galvanizing commitment for change is surging through...

5 Must-See Ceramics Shows You Can View Online, Artsy, April 29, 2020

5 Must-See Ceramic Shows You Can View Online Artsy Editoral, Sarah Dotson April 29, 2020 "While galleries have temporarily closed...

Galleries closed due to COVID-19, but Art must go on!, Beautiful Bizarre, March 17, 2020

Galleries closed due to COVID-19, but Art must go on! Beautiful Bizarre, DANIJELA KRHA PURSSEY March 17, 2020 "Sensibly...

Cristina Córdova featured in The New York Times, March 16, 2020

New York Times Watching March 16, 2020 "...for a real dose of hard-core PBS-ness, go for "Finding your Roots" and...

NATURE/NURTURE: Female ceramists reflect on experiences that shaped them, The Berkshire Eagle, March 13, 2020

"NATURE/NURTURE: Female ceramists reflect on experiences that shaped them" The Berkshire Eagle by Jennifer Huberdeau March 13, 2020 "In the...

NATURE/NURTURE featured on The Roundtable on WAMC March 11, 2020 "Considering the impact that the #MeToo movement is having on...

Cristina Córdova featured on Craft in America on PBS. New Episode "Identity" Premieres on 12/27/2019. Check your local listings. Artists...

‘Composing Form’ in Stowe Today, July 18, 2019

‘Exposed.’ stays close to home by Caleigh Cross | Stowe Reporter July 18, 2019. "Composing Form" at the Helen Day...

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: DEL BALCÓN at FERRIN CONTEMPORARY 1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA Cristina Córdova, "Del balcón III" 2018,...

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA New York, Pittsburgh, Massachusetts, Indonesia CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: JUNGLA solo exhibition Alfred Ceramic Art Museum at Alfred...

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CATALOGS

Mastering Sculpture: The Figure in Clay Catalog by Cristina Córdova

Buy now

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 using clay.
Start by developing meaningful sketches and reference points.

Then learn how to make and use an armature to create hollow forms that are safe to fire in a kiln.

Using patterns and slabs, you can move on to develop a full human form, head to toe.
Work along with the author to create a form about two feet tall, or choose your own size: the patterns and instructions can work in a variety of scales.

Photographic demonstrations and diagrams cover the construction and articulation of feet and legs, the hip area and upper torso, arms, hands, neck, and head. Cristina includes supplementary tips and insights throughout to support the sculpting process and enhance naturalism. You’ll also find a brief section on general anatomical concepts and modeling strategies to facilitate accuracy and expression as all the components come together.

Whether you are a clay artist with limited experience in figurative sculpture or a figurative sculptor outside the world of ceramics looking for a straightforward fabrication strategy to create permanent compositions from clay, Mastering Sculpture: The Figure in Clay will expertly guide your way.

Publication Date: 2022, Quarry Books
Fully illustrated 192 pages

Cristina Córdova: Jungla Catalog

Buy now

Cristina Cordóva: Jungla at the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum

This catalog features a foreword by Wayne Higby, Director of the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum. The exhibition catalog also includes color photography of the artworks and installation from Cristina’s solo exhibition at the museum in 2018: CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: Jungla

Publication Date: 2018
Fully illustrated 32 pages

“At its most basic level Jungla refers to a region of dense, intractable wilderness that sustains an ongoing evolutionary dance governed by uncivilized forces. This tropical landscape of my youth is a beacon to an identity, tying me back to a specific geography and the sediment of generations. Its unrelenting influence speaks of luscious yet ominous constructs that echo the socio-political conditions in the Caribbean. Its unruly mystery seeps out of its confines to also serve as a metaphor for a creative process anchored in that liminal space between chaos and balance. A practice that gathers significance amidst the subconscious forces that underpin reality and the firm directives of the ego. Through image and form, Jungla explores the relationship between these human and geographic connections.” — Cristina Córdova

IN DIALOGUE: Cristina Córdova & Kukuli Velarde

CRISTINA CÓRDOVA: cuerpo exquisito at Hodges Taylor

VIDEOS

Cristina Cordova Artist Talk – JRACraft Distinguished Artist Series

by the James Renwick Alliance for Craft

The JRACraft Distinguished Artist Series features figurative ceramic sculptor Cristina Córdova. Córdova excels at figurative sculpture, making finely-crafted pieces which celebrate our shared humanity while challenging notions of race, gender, beauty, and power. She draws on a deep knowledge of art history to give life to contemporary ceramic portraits and invites the viewer to participate in the narrative.

VIEW Cristina Cordova – JRACraft Distinguished Artist Talk

INFRAME – CRISTINA CORDOVA

Cristina Cordova is a sculptor based in North Carolina. Originally from Puerto Rico, Cordova was studying engineering when she decided to quit her program and follow her dreams of being an artist. In her picturesque studio she creates arresting clay figures that are both personal and universal. Her work is exhibited as part of the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, and the Fuller Craft Museum, among others.

View InFrame – Cristina Cordova

CRAFT IN AMERICA NEW IDENTITY EPISODE

Artists explore issues of gender, race, culture and place, offering true expressions of their experience in this world.

Featuring potter Diego Romero, photographer Cara Romero, furniture maker Wendy Maruyama, and sculptor Cristina Córdova.

View Craft in Americs: New Identity Espisode

CLAY AND CONVERSATION WITH CRISTINA CÓRDOVA | THE CLAY STUDIO

Cristina is one of the dozen artists whose work appears in Figuring Space, an exhibition of life-size ceramic figurative sculpture. We are thrilled to have this talented artist as a guest to ask her about her inspirations for the ideas and styles of her work.

View Clay and Conversation Video

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

May

2017

RAYMON ELOZUA

ON VIEW

Clayscapes

At the Everson Museum of Art
Syracuse, NY
April 13 through October 20, 2024

ARTWORK

Selections from the Artist’s Series

Archive & Artist Site HERE

C.I.C (CLARITY IN CONFUSION) SERIES

Raymon Elozua, “C.i.C. I (Clarity in Confusion)”, 2021, steel, blown glass, mirror, 04 terracotta & glaze, 44 x 38 x 46”

View More C.I.C HERE

Raymon Elozua, “C.i.C. I (Clarity in Confusion)”, back view, 2021, steel, blown glass, mirror, 04 terracotta & glaze, 44 x 38 x 46”

Raymon Elozua, “C.i.C. II (Clarity in Confusion)”, 2021, steel, blown glass, mirror, 04 terracotta & glaze, 44 x 38 x 46”

Raymon Elozua, “C.i.C. III (Clarity in Confusion)”, 2021, steel, blown glass, mirror, 04 terracotta & glaze, 44 x 38 x 46”

Raymon Elozua, “C.i.C. IV (Clarity in Confusion)”, 2021, steel, blown glass, mirror, 04 terracotta & glaze, 44 x 38 x 46”

“To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.” – Samuel Beckett

We are each a collection of experiences, memories, dreams, actions, sins, fears, interests and so forth. We move along, gathering more and more experiences in our perceived continuum of time. Ultimately they all devolve into hazy fragments. Our lived experiences become puzzles to decipher. How do we integrate all we are into a cohesive whole or soul so that we can be peaceful and holistic?

Clarity in Confusion is a body of work that seeks inspiration from the artist’s personal interior landscape. I create entropic sculptures that decay, are always flaking, cracking, and disintegrating. This is a reminder and reflection of the human condition and ultimately our death. Rather than struggle to assemble the shards of our experiences and history, the task is to accept the confusion and uncertainty. In that acceptance comes a sense of clarity.

TRI-HARMONIC SERIES

Raymon Elozua, Tri-Harmonic S.3, 2018-19, terra cotta, steel, hand blown glass and mirror, 33 x 32 x 36″

View More TRI-HARMONIC HERE

Raymon Elozua, Tri-Harmonic B1, 2018-19, 04 Terra cotta, steel, hand blown glass, and mirror, 41.5 x 36 x 50″

Raymon Elozua, “Tri-Harmonic B2″, 2018-19, terra cotta, steel, hand blown glass and mirror, 43 x 32.5 x 52”

Raymon Elozua, Tri-Harmonic S.1, 2018, 04 Terra cotta, steel, hand blown glass, and mirror, 36 x 32 x 34″

Raymon Elozua, Tri-Harmonic S.2, 2018-19, terra cotta, steel, hand blown glass and mirror, 30 x 29 x 37″

Raymon Elozua, Tri-Harmonic S.3, 2018-19, terra cotta, steel, hand blown glass and mirror, 33 x 32 x 36″

In 2018, I decided to return to glass again in conjunction with ceramic and steel. Once more, I worked with Lorin Silverman; this time at Urban Glass in Brooklyn. In addition to blown glass, I was interested in using mirror strips similar in nature to the enamelware photographic setups. The glass was created first. I then constructed a steel structure to suspend the glass shapes, which are removable for the kiln firings. Clay was added and the sculpture was fired for bisque the color. Metal angles were then welded at various angles as a support for two sided mirror strips, which were glued in place.

This series is entitled “Tri-Harmonic” referring to the relationship between glass, ceramic and steel, materials that all use fire and heat as an essential means in their creation.

HUBRIS SERIES

Raymon Elozua, “H: IMF-07″ 2016, terra cotta, whiteware, glaze steel rod and plate, 30 x 27 x 22”.

View More HUBRIS HERE

Raymon Elozua, “H: IMF-05:”, 2016, terra cotta, whiteware, glaze, steel rod and plate, 27.5 x 22 x 26″

Raymon Elozua, “H: IMF-06:”, 2016, terra cotta, whiteware, glaze, steel rod and plate, 28 x 23 x 22.5″

Raymon Elozua, “H: IMF-07″ 2016, terra cotta, whiteware, glaze steel rod and plate, 30 x 27 x 22”.

Raymon Elozua, “H: IMF-08″ 2016, terra cotta, whiteware, glaze steel rod and plate, 30 x 23 x 23.5”.

Raymon Elozua, “H: IMF-09″ 2016, terra cotta, whiteware, glaze steel rod and plate, 26.5 x 23.5 x 22.5”.

Raymon Elozua, “H: IMF-10:”, 2016, terra cotta, whiteware, glaze, steel rod and plate, 28 x 23 x 23″

Raymon Elozua, H: IMF-11:, 2016, terra cotta, whiteware, glaze, steel rod and plate, 30 x 23 x 23.5″

Raymon Elozua, “H: IMF-12″ 2016, terra cotta, whiteware, glaze steel rod and plate, 27 x 23 x 20”.

In the 5th grade at Our Lady Gate of Heaven, our teacher created a contest. Pointing to an image of a state on a map of the USA, each student, standing at the back of the classroom, would have to name the capital of that state.

I studied and studied and was reasonably certain I could win. The only problem, I could not discern the shapes of the state from the back. I asked the nun to keep moving forward until I could clearly see the shapes. Soon I was literally 6 feet away. I knew every capital but I do not recall if she awarded a prize. What I do know is that she called my parents and told them I needed glasses.

Soon I received a pair of new prescription glasses for near sightedness. Already branded a “teacher’s pet, I was now immediately also called “4-eyes.” Despite the negative social implications, what mattered now was that I could see clearly for the first time. Everything was sharp, ordered, and definitive. Eyesight gave me a clarity, even a harshness of vision: the line, the curve, the edge with “level” and “perpendicular” defining space and volume.

Now that my vision is diminishing with age, I remembered this event. I decided to re-create the experience of seeing out of focus. In 2010, utilizing a table top set up of old and new enamelware, I produced a series of richly colored “blurry” images that recalled my first visual experiences.

In 2016, I thought it would be interesting to take these photos, to replace the glowing amorphous shapes in ceramic and steel. I was not successful, hence the title, “Hubris.” Eyesight and clarity prevailed.

R&D SERIES

Raymon Elozua, “R&D VII, RE-17-1” 2014, ceramic, glaze, steel, glass, 38 x 23 x 43″

View More R&D HERE

Raymon Elozua, “R&D VII, RE-17-1” 2014, ceramic, glaze, steel, glass, 38 x 23 x 43″

Raymon Elozua, “R&D VII RE-17-1”, 2014, ceramic, glaze, steel & glass, 38 x 23 x 43” – currently on loan at the Corning Museum of Glass

Raymon Elozua, “R&D VII RE-17-1”, 2014, ceramic, glaze, steel & glass, 38 x 23 x 43”

Working in the ceramic medium, I have always been interested in the synthesis of different materials. From 1989 through 2002, I used steel rod and wire combined with 04 terracotta in my sculptures. The “skeleton” of the steel provided a way to utilize clay in a more spatial and gravity-defying manner.

The medium of glass is attractive but I never had an occasion to explore it. In 2013, I met Lorin Silverman, an expert glassblower and artist. He worked then for Corning Museum as a technician helping artists to realize their vision in glass. We researched and developed a way to blow glass into a metal armature.

Glass is perhaps the most difficult medium I have utilized. Once the glass shapes were created, using CAD drawings I constructed a steel and wire structure, which was then covered with terra cotta and fired multiple times for color to Cone 04. The glass forms were then independently affixed to the sculptures.

The tension between the fractured ceramic with the reflective glass is fascinating, a feeling of beauty born out of decay.

The work of R&D Sculptures 2014: Ceramic, Steel and Glass was constructed, March 2013 – May 2014.

GLASS R&D SERIES

Raymon Elozua, “R&D III RE-10-1b” 2014, ceramic, glaze, steel, glass, 44 x 31 x 42″.

View More GLASS R&D HERE

Raymon Elozua, R&D I: Re-9-1a, 2014, ceramic, glaze, steel & glass, 42 x 29 x 41”

Raymon Elozua, “R&D II Re-16-1” 2014, ceramic, glaze, steel, glass, 33 x 29 x 46”.

Raymon Elozua, “R&D III RE-10-1b” 2014, ceramic, glaze, steel, glass, 44 x 31 x 42″.

Raymon Elozua, “R&D IV RE-15-1a” 2014, ceramic, glaze, glass, 40 x 31 x 41″

Raymon Elozua, “R&D V RE-23-1”, 2014, ceramic, glaze, steel & glass, 32 x 25 x 43”

Raymon Elozua, “R&D VII RE-17-1”, 2014, ceramic, glaze, steel & glass, 38 x 23 x 43” – currently on loan at the Corning Museum of Glass

These new sculptures are derived from a series of sculptures starting in 1999. They are based on a digital exploration of Abstract Expressionist paintings. Adobe Photoshop was used to separate colored shapes within various paintings created by different artists. A DeKooning painting could be separated into 7 different colors or layers. These colors and their corresponding forms were then modified and manipulated in 3D Studio Max, a CAD software.

The resulting building blocks were then assembled into coherent 3D forms. These prints were used as rough templates to “re-materialize” the digital images into steel and ceramic sculptures. A sculpture now was comprised of the various “sampled” forms and colors from several historical artists.

Working in the ceramic medium, I was always interested in the synthesis of different materials. From 1989 through 2001 I used steel rod combined with 04 terra cotta in my sculpture. The “skeleton” of steel provided a way to utilize clay in a more spatial and gravity defying manner.

The medium of glass was always attractive. In early 2013, I met Lorin Silverman, an expert glassblower with a BFA from Alfred. He then worked for Corning Museum as a resident technician assisting artists to realize their vision.

We researched and developed a way to blow glass into a metal armature. In July 2013, Lorin provided the labor and expertise to make the glass shapes used in this new body of work. Glass is the most difficult medium that I have experienced.

Once the shapes were blown, using CAD drawings, I constructed a steel and wire structure, which was then covered with terra cotta and fired multiple times for color. The glass forms were then independently affixed to the fired sculpture.

The tension between the fractured ceramic with the reflective glass is fascinating, a feeling of beauty born out of decay.

EXHIBITIONS

FEATURED EXHIBITIONS

$Raymon Elozua Installation for "Are We There Yet?", Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary in North Adams, MA Sculpture: Raymon Elozua, "Digital Sculpture: Hubris: IMF-02", 04 terra cotta, whiteware, glaze, steel rod and plate, 2016, 26.5 x 16.5 x 20". Photos (top left to bottom right): "Enamelware Mirror (Refractile) #2792", "Enamelware Mirror (Refractile) #3217", "Enamelware Table (EWed-26-e-847)", "Enamelware Conversation (6&3+ExMir-11-14-1094)", "Enamelware Table (EWed-31-a-1328)", "Enamelware Mirror (Refractile) #1835", 2006-2007, Archival ink on archival rag paper, 17 x 22" (each). Photo by John Polak Photography$

ARE WE THERE YET?

July 15 – September 2, 2023 | Group Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA

ARE WE THERE YET? is a celebration of Ferrin Contemporary’s 40+ years as leaders in the field of modern and contemporary ceramics.

View the exhibition page HERE

STRUCTURE/DISSONANCE

September 10 – December 31, 2022 | Solo Exhibition at Everson Museum of Art | Syracuse, NY

celebrates nearly five decades of work by New York-based artist Raymon Elozua, who first came to prominence in the 1970s with detailed trompe l’oeil ceramic sculptures of decaying industrial landscapes.

View the exhibition page HERE

MELTING POINT

2021 | Group Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary & Heller Gallery | North Adams, MA & New York, NY

Survey of a diverse group of artists whose use of the melting point is central to their practice.

View the exhibition page HERE

RECENT EXHIBITIONS

ARE WE THERE YET?

Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
July 15 – September 2, 2023

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

RAYMON ELOZUA: Structure/Dissonance

Everson Museum of Art | Syracuse, NY
September 10 – December 31, 2022

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

SHAPES FROM OUT OF NOWHERE | The Met Fifth Avenue

February 22, 2021 – August 29, 2021

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

ABOUT

RAYMON ELOZUA

ELOZUA.COM

INSTAGRAM

BIO

STATEMENT

ABOUT

b. 1947 West Germany
lives and works in Mountaindale, NY

Raymon Elozua is a transdisciplinary visual artist working in the Catskills region of New York. His extensive studio practice consists of large-scale sculpture in ceramic, steel and glass, photography, visual research and archiving, web-based projects, and other forms of documentation. Elozua’s work often references the vessel, abstract expressionism, industrial decline and decay, and regionalism.

Elozua has been awarded three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a New York State Foundation for the Arts Grant, and a Virginia A. Groot Foundation Grant. His work has been exhibited at The Carnegie Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Mint Museum of Art and The Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), and Yale University Art Gallery, among others. He has taught at The California College of Arts & Crafts, Louisiana State University, New York University, Pratt School of Design, and The Rhode Island School of Design. Elozua’s solo exhibition Structure/Dissonance opens at The Everson Museum of Art in Fall 2022.

ON HIS WORK

Both my parents were immigrants. My father was an illegal Cuban immigrant who nonetheless fought in the US Army during WWII, serving for 25 years and retiring as a Master Sergeant. My mother was a French war bride who survived the German invasion and civilian conscription, which emotionally scarred her entire life.

I was raised in the presence of these two different cultures, which were overshadowed by the dominant culture of the USA. Growing up in this ‘melting pot’ of America imbued me with a fluid, restless identity.

To that point, I am a college drop-out. I have worked as a batting machine operator, hardware store clerk, library book stacker, babysitter, house painter, junkman, auto body painter, band roadie, macrobiotic baker, caterer, truck driver, theatrical carpenter, prop maker, construction contractor, landlord, potter, college art instructor, art consultant, property manager and local historian. I am a self-educated artist, not exactly a role model for college students; nonetheless I taught at the college level for many years.

Given my background, I see no reason in swearing a fealty to one medium, ceramic or otherwise. This work, like my personal history, combines three different mediums to create a cohesive aesthetic whole. I think this mirrors my own identity. The personal psychology of the work is echoed in the marriage of dissimilar materials whose only commonality is fire and heat. Embedded in this work is the resonance of my family.

Steel :: Strength :: Father

Ceramic :: Emotion :: Mother

Glass :: Hope :: Artist

– Raymon Elozua, 2022

ON WORKING IN ABSTRACTION

Abstraction has no message.
Abstraction has no literal meaning.
Abstraction is a pure reflection of self.

The computer was a significant tool in creating this body of work. The aesthetics behind the work originated from sampling different colors in a variety of Abstract Expressionist paintings. The colors were then exported into a software program and used as the basis for creating assorted 3D shapes. The forms were combined into virtual, albeit sterile, digital sculptures. These images were then “translated” into tactile textured sculptures fabricated out of steel, ceramic, and glass. The physical reality of the marriage of these materials and processes results in objects whose aesthetic beauty is born from decay, entropy, and regeneration. Abstraction has no message, no literal meaning, it is a pure reflection of self.

– Raymon Elozua, 2022

PUBLICATIONS

Representing Elozua’s varied explorations into photography, websites, collections, and sculpture made of glass, steel, and ceramic, view the artist’s thirty+ catalogs

View All Publications HERE

Raymon Elozua: STRUCTURE & DISSONANCE
Everson Museum of Art exhibition catalog

Published on Dec 27, 2022

Structure/Dissonance celebrates nearly five decades of work by New York-based artist Raymon Elozua, who first came to prominence in the 1970s with detailed trompe l’oeil ceramic sculptures of decaying industrial landscapes. Elozua’s first major museum exhibition since his 2003 retrospective at the Mint Museum, Structure/Dissonance focuses on three conceptual bodies of work that explore the combined physical properties of three elemental materials: ceramic, glass, and steel. This exhibition contextualizes these vital sculptures within Elozua’s intellectual landscape through the inclusion of a series of collections and research projects that are inextricably linked to his artistic output. September 10—December 31, 2022 at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY – curated by Garth Johnson; catalog features essays by Johnson, Maria Porges, and Thyrza Nichols Goodeve, 2022.

RAYMON ELOZUA: Evolution of Steel and Ceramics

This catalog is a record of a portion of Raymon Elozua’s varied explorations into photography, websites, collections, and sculpture made of glass, steel, and ceramic. It documents Elozua’s relentless curiosity and enormous capacity for diverse inquiry, interpretation, and mastery.

DOWNLOAD PDF HERE

RAYMON ELOZUA: R&D Sculptures 2014

In 2014, visual artist Raymon Elozua created a new body of mixed media sculpture, the R&D series, incorporating glass, ceramics, and steel. He received a Virginia A. Groot Foundation grant for this work. This catalog is a comprehensive documentation of this work.

DOWNLOAD PDF HERE

RAYMON ELOZUA: Word Sculptures

Using digital technologies, Raymon Elozua extracts layers of colored shapes from abstract expressionist paintings. He then re-materializes the digital imagery into steel and ceramic sculptures. The work shown here was constructed during 2001 in New York City.

DOWNLOAD PDF HERE

RAYMON ELOZUA, Hubris: Images Made Flesh

“Hubris” presents a juxtaposition of Elozua’s blurry photographic images with the precise, hard edges of his ceramic and steel sculptures. The photos recreate both a childhood nearsightedness and the deteriorating vision that comes with aging. “In 2016, I thought it would be interesting to take these photos and to replicate the glowing amorphous shapes in ceramic and steel. I was not successful, hence the title, ‘Hubris.’ Eyesight and clarity prevailed,” said Elozua of this body of work.

DOWNLOAD PDF HERE

CONSTRUCTING ELOZUA: A Retrospective

This catalog was published on the occasion of the exhibition “Constructing Elozua: A Retrospective, 1973–2003” organized by the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, North Carolina, and presenting the work of sculptor Raymon Elozua.

Foreword by Mark Richard Leach
Essays by Garth Clark, Melissa G. Post, and Edward Leffingwell

DOWNLOAD PDF HERE

DIGITAL PROJECTS

PHOTOGRAPHY

DOCUMENTARY

ENAMELWARE

COLLECTIONS

MOUNTAINDALE

Raymon Elozua, Blur #2 (P-Canon 100m_0678), 2010, Archival ink on archival rag paper, 17 x 22″

popsongpoems.us

eggbasket-scny.us

vanishingcatskills.us

homescrap.us

rustybucket.us

lostlabor.com

stoveburner.com

NEWS

Raymon Elozua: STRUCTURE & DISSONANCE Exhibition Catalog

View Catalog on ISSUU Raymon Elozua: STRUCTURE & DISSONANCE Everson Museum of Art exhibition catalog Structure/Dissonance celebrates nearly five decades of work by New York-based artist Raymon Elozua, who first...

Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA
June 24 – September 25, 2021

NEW GLASS NOW, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY

May 12- January 5, 2020

EARTH PIECE, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY

Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY.July 20, 2019- January 5, 2020

'Are We There Yet?' celebrates the history and artists of Ferrin Contemporary Berkshire Eagle, Jennifer Huberdeau July 28, 2023 A JOURNEY IN CERAMICS NORTH ADAMS — Sometimes, the only way...

Raymon Elozua’s STRUCTURE/DISSONANCE Featured in Sculpture Magazine

From the Ruins: A Conversation with Raymon Elozua December 21, 2022 by Maria Porges STRUCTURE/DISSONANCE at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NYSeptember 10 to December 31, 2022 For more...

SUMMER AT FERRIN CONTEMPORARY JUNE EVENTS IN NORTH ADAMS FERRIN CONTEMPORARY, located on the campus of MASS MoCA, lies in the heart of the Berkshires. The gallery is located...

YEAR IN REVIEW 2015 A review of last year's highlights and trends with special thanks to all who made it possible with their art, interest, encouragement, and support. Click here...

Elozua Studio & Shainman Gallery Field Trip

AUGUST 8 | STUDIO & GALLERY FIELD TRIP Raymon Elozua Studio & Jack Shainman Gallery Mountain Dale & Kinderhook, NY Ferrin contemporary invites you to join us on Saturday, August 8, 2015 for…

Artsy Magazine features Ferrin Contemporary a1315 MASS MoCA Way.
Read more…

Gingras & Elozua present Made in Mountaindale

Micheline Gingras & Raymon Elozua in “Made in Mountaindale” On Saturday, August 8th from noon to 4, Raymon Elozua and Micheline Gingras welcomes the public to the Grocery Story Gallery in Mountaindale,…

SUNDAY JULY 19 | CLAY IS HOT! GOOD BETTER BEST Panel Discussion and Dinner in the Gallery 1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams JULY 25 &…

In 2015, Elozua received a Virginia A. Groot Foundation grant for a new body of work. The R&D series of mixed media sculpture incorporates glass, ceramics, and steel.

Glazed & Diffused will be on view at Ferrin Contemporary’s gallery space at 1315 MASS MoCA Way in North Adams from June 20 through August 16, 2015. This survey exhibition will…

ADDITIONAL PRESS

“For more than 40 years, Raymon Elozua has maintained a career largely outside of the commercial art world, forging his own path in creative and enduring ways…”

Read full text here.

Raymon Elozua: Fire and Steel
American Ceramics Vol.11 #3

by Peter Von Ziegesar

“If the conventional thrown pitcher or teapot represents, in the mind of the potter, an attempt to distill something essential, beautiful and permanent about the human spirit and cast it into a material that is among the most lasting known to man, then Raymon Elozua’s pieces of the last two years try to do the opposite…”

Read full text here.

Constructing Elozua: A Retrospective, 1973–2003
Mint Museum of Craft + Design

This online career retrospective connects the threads of a 30-year body of work driven by Raymon Elozua’s fascination of materials, process, and his insatiable curiosity. It includes photography, ceramics vessels, sculptural landscapes, paintings, and computer-derived art.

Click here to explore Constructing Elozua: A Retrospective through imagery, video, interviews, and commentary presented by the Mint Museum.

Without Compromise: A Personal View of Raymon Elozua’s Art
by Garth Clark

“Elozua is one of those rare contemporary artists for whom art is not vocational choice, but is a trust and sacrament in which compromise and dishonesty are simply not options.”

Click to read full essay.

Raymon Elozua: How to Make a Teapot
by Edward Leffingwell

Raymon Elozua came to the broad range of his work as an artist fired by a curiosity concerning process and driven by the avidity and range of his remarkable intelligence.

Click to read full essay.

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

May

2017

COURTNEY M. LEONARD

UPCOMING

Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses

Thomas Cole National Historic Site

218 Spring St, Catskill, NY

May 3 – November 2, 2025

Featuring Jacqueline Bishop & Courtney M. Leonard

ARTWORK

ARTWORKS & INSTALLATIONS

BREACH: Logbook 24 | SCRIMSHAW

BREACH: Logbook 24 | STACCATO

BREACH: Logbook 24 | TRANSCENDENCE

BREACH: Logbook 21 | CONVOKE

BREACH: Logbook 21 | NEBULOUS | GHOST TRAP STUDY – MTS O1

BREACH: Logbook 21 | NEBULOUS | ARTIFICE – CSW2 & CSW3

BREACH: Logbook 21 | SCRIMSHAW STUDY #3

BREACH: Logbook 21 | NEBULOUS | FLOW TRAP STUDY G1

ABOUT

COURTNEY M. LEONARD

FOR MORE

COURTNEYMLEONARD.COM

BIO

ABOUT

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.

Courtney Leonard, “BREACH: Logbook 21 | NEBULOUS | FLOW TRAP STUDY G1”, 2021, Coiled & Woven Earthenware, Appx. 15” x 15” x 5.5″

ON BREACH

“Breach” is an exploration of historical ties to water and whale, imposed law, and a current relationship of material sustainability. Navigation lies within visual translation; an account of relations and responsibility.
Charting exists as a log of record; the documentation and mapping of each point where the surface breaks.
As a visual acknowledgment, each work examines the evolution of language, image, and culture through video, audio, and tangible objects. Each component, a resonation of memory, documenting both social and environmental issues acknowledged through the cartography of mixed media.”

– Courtney M. Leonard, Shinnecock Nation

VIEW ESSAY & DOWNLOAD PDF

Courtney Leonard, “BREACH: Logbook 24 | TRANSCENDENCE”, 2024, Installation at Friedman Benda, NYC, Courtesy of Friedman Benda and Courtney M. Leonard. Photography by Timothy Doyon.

ON BREACH | Essay for The New Transcendence By Glenn Adamson

“Why do we ever speak of a shore line? Where the water meets the sea, we find anything but a fixed boundary. All is flux, in all dimensions. As the tide rolls in and out, natural forms are perpetually revealed, concealed, and incrementally shaped. The forces involved are of astronomical scale, but this perpetual metamorphic flow is an intimate matter for those who live by, and make their living from, the sea.

Among those with that deep understanding are the people of the Shinnecock Nation, whose unceded aboriginal lands are on the eastern end of Long Island. That heritage of insight, in turn, forms a firm foundation for artist Courtney M. Leonard. For the past decade, she has devoted herself largely to a series entitled, simply, Breach – a word that can imply underhanded betrayal (as in “breach of contract”) or on the contrary, a sudden emergence into visibility (as when a whale breaches).

The ambiguity is telling, for fluidity can be seen throughout Leonard’s work, not only at the level of depiction – the wall-based work included in The New Transcendence can be read as the aerial map of a coastal zone, punctuated by fishing weirs – but also at the levels of making and meaning. It could also be an abstract painting, or a constellation. For as Leonard notes, “to understand the land and water, you also need to understand the sky.”   

Ceramics is, of course, a discipline born of the encounter between earth and water. Leonard has said that as she coils and interlaces the wet clay, bestowing intricate form upon it, the repetition of process prompts her to enter a meditative frame of mind, a self-transcendence akin perhaps to dreaming. When looking at the finished work, we are to some extent admitted into that same state of transport. To borrow from the late anthropologist and art critic Alfred Gell, Leonard’s cage-like structures function as traps, snaring us in a nexus of intention and reference. 

But if Leonard’s work is about various forms of capture – of time, space, and yes, of thought itself – she also approaches that dynamic with great care. She speaks of Indigenous techniques of aquaculture as being in a relationship of respect to nature; rather than locating weirs within migratory channels, for example, they are positioned off to one side, so as not to obstruct passage. Those fish that do get caught are, in a sense, offering themselves as sustenance; practically speaking, this method also prevents overfishing, ensuring the sustenance future generations. This ought to be the model for how we humans treat natural resources; it ought to be the model for design.“

– Glenn Adamson, 2024
Curator, writer, historian

EXHIBITIONS

CURRENT + RECENT EXHIBITIONS

Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses

Group Exhibition | Thomas Cole National Historic Site| Catskill, NY

May 3 – November 2, 2025

Featuring Jacqueline Bishop & Courtney M. Leonard

View the exhibition page HERE

Emily Cole: Ceramics, Flora, and Contemporary Responses Banner

COURTNEY M. LEONARD | BREACH: LOGBOOK 24 | STACCATO

Solo Exhibition | University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMASS
Amherst, MA

February 14 – May 10, September 19 – December 9, 2024

BREACH: LOGBOOK 24 | STACCATO is the result of a multi-year artist residency initiated by the UMCA in collaboration with the UMass College of Natural Sciences and partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. The installation will fill the UMCA’s Main, East and West Galleries. It includes paintings, sculptures, and video exploring the life and kinship ties of Staccato, a North Atlantic Right Whale killed by a ship strike in 1999, whose remains are housed in the UMass Natural History Collections.

Courtney M. Leonard, “Breach: Logbook 24 | Staccato”, Installation at the University Museum of Art, UMASS, Amherst, MA, 2024, Photos courtesy of UMass Amherst University Museum of Contemporary Art

COURTNEY M. LEONARD | BREACH: LOGBOOK 24 | SCRIMSHAW

Solo Exhibition | New Bedford Whaling Museum
New Bedford, MA
June 1 through November 3, 2024

Courtney M. Leonard has produce an entirely new body of work for the installation at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which continues her interest in coastal communities and historical whaling, while engaging the museum’s history, collections, and community partnerships with culture bearers from the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, also known as the People of the First Light.

“Courtney M. Leonard: BREACH: LOGBOOK 24 | SCRIMSHAW”, exhibition at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, MA, June 1 through November 3, 2024

RIVERS FLOW / ARTISTS CONNECT

Hudson River Museum
Yonkers, NY
on view February 2, 2024 – September 1, 2024

A group exhibition of American artists from the 1820s to the present day illuminating our profound, symbiotic relationship with significant rivers across the globe, from the Hudson and the Susquehanna to the Indus and the Seine.

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.

THE NEW TRANSCENDENCE.

Friedman Benda
New York, NY
January 11, 2024 – February 24, 2024

A group exhibition that explores the place of the spiritual in contemporary design today.

Courtney Leonard, The New Transcendence Installation at Friedman Benda, New York, NY, 2024

ARE WE THERE YET?

Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA
July 15 – September 3, 2023

A group exhibition celebrating the gallery’s 40+ years as leaders in ceramic art.

Ferrin Contemporary, “Are We There Yet?”, 2023, Exhibition Installation View with work by Chris Antemann, Courtney M. Leonard, Sergei Isupov, Crystal Morey, & Kurt Weiser, Photo by John Polak Photography

COURTNEY M. LEONARD: Logbook 2004-2023

The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY
June 10 – November 12, 2023

A solo exhibition paired with a public art installation at Planting Fields Foundation.

COURTNEY M. Leonard: Logbook 2004-2023, installation at The Heckscher Museum, 2023.

2023 INTERNATIONAL CERAMIC ART FAIR

Gardiner Museum, Toronto, Ontario
June 8 – 18, 2023

A 10-day celebration of recent contemporary ceramic art by regional and international artists.

Gardiner Museum, ICAF 2023

FEATURED & TRAVELING

• BREACH •

Nature, Crisis, Consequence

New-York Historical Society, New York, NY | March 31 – July 16, 2023

Nature, Crisis, Consequence is a groundbreaking art exhibition that looks at the social and cultural impact of the environmental crisis on different communities across America. Showcasing works drawn from New-York Historical’s permanent collection, recent acquisitions, and loaned works, which collectively span the history of the United States, the exhibition explores subjects ranging from the proto-environmentalism of the Hudson River School to the razing of homes and churches to clear land for Central Park, the environmental and human tolls of the transcontinental railroad, and Indigenous artists’ calls to environmental action.

Exhibition highlights include the five-part series Course of Empire, Thomas Cole’s urgent warning against uncontrolled expansion into the natural world; an arresting seascape by Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee) overlaid by an abstract Pequot/Narragansett pattern which reclaims the present-day New England coast as Indigenous; and a woven ceramic basket by Courtney M. Leonard (Shinnecock) inspired by the mass fish die-offs on Long Island caused by climate change. Curated by Wendy Nālani E. Ikemoto, senior curator of American Art at New-York Historical

Build on this Gesture

Flaten Art Museum St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
February 6–April 7, 2023

Build on this Gesture features eight studio artists currently working and teaching within St. Olaf College’s Department of Art and Art History and Flaten Art Museum: Krista Anderson-Larson, D’Angelo Christian, Sophie W. Eisner, Courtney M. Leonard, Peter Bonde Becker Nelson, Anders Nienstaedt, John Saurer, and Michon Weeks. The work on view reflects the artists’ current research, expertise, and teaching interests, as well as emergent forms that embrace experimentation. The word “gesture” was used by many of the exhibiting artists to describe an aspect of, or motivation for, their work. Their meanings varied (expressive body movement, emphasis, symbolic offering, human connection) but always suggested something preliminary—something to build on.

An accompanying exhibition catalog highlights eight distinguished essayists working across Minnesota as curators, artists, writers, and creatives: Kehayr Brown-Ransaw, Zoe Cinel, Mike Curran, Heid E. Erdrich, Laura Wertheim Joseph, Matthew Villar Miranda, Melanie Pankau, and Andy Sturdevant. Each writer was paired with one exhibiting artist, and the pair became acquainted through studio visits and video chats. Their essays offer poignant, novel, and sometimes amusing interpretations of the new work on view. Seeding relationships of mutual creative exchange is a delightful outcome of this project—another gesture to build on.

On Courtney M. Leonard: Meeting Water
by Heid E. Erdrich in Build on this Gesture Exhibition Catalog

“How can water and light be made of earth and fire? I asked this of myself when I first saw Courtney M. Leonard’s ceramic depictions of whale teeth, fish traps, and her thumb-sized clay pendants embellished with historical images. I soon learned Leonard’s careful combination of the elements works to tell a story that only such a balance of all elements can tell.

Leonard’s art is bound to a life and culture that came into being surrounded by water, the Shinnecock homelands, in what is now known as Long Island, NY. In her work I sense a story that arises from water worlds and the threats to them all—threats both to the water worlds and to the Shinnecock people alike. Her shapes speak of water creatures and the work humans have done at sea or on a river—fishing, whaling, gathering shells for tools and art, and more—work we forget forged an extraordinarily successful economy for millennia. That work went on so long without threatening the water and its life because Indigenous people strive to understand their relationship to the creatures they depend upon. Leonard’s work continues the careful building of the relationship to water that has served Shinnecock people so long.

Several years ago, Leonard and I were at a convening with other fellowship awardees selected by the Native Arts and Culture Foundation. She gave a brief and insightful presentation on her art and shared the complex and deeply thoughtful process she engaged in before creating—a process of learning not only about place, butfromplace. In the years since, I visited Leonard’s installation,BREACH: LOGBOOK 20 | NEBULOUS“

— Heid E. Erdrich

BREACH: LOGBOOK 22 | BOUND

St. Gaudens Memorial, Cornish NH
May 28 – July 12, 2022

Courtney M. Leonard, “BREACH: Logbook 22 | NEBULOUS FLOW TRAP O1″, ceramics | coiled & woven earthenware, 15″ x 15″ x 7.5”

Courtney M. Leonard, “BREACH: Logbook 23 | BREACH #2”, Wooden pallet w/ ceramic Sperm Whale teeth, 3′ x 4′ x 3′ (40-60 teeth)

Courtney M. Leonard, “BREACH: Logbook 21 | COLLIDER STUDY #1”, 2021, mixed media acrylic & clay on canvas, 60” x 72” x 2”

Acknowledging oceans as a critical space of globalization BREACH re-contextualizes in material forms the memories and lived experiences of communities and their relationships with water through an annual visual logbook. BREACH: LOGBOOK 22 | BOUND, creates an invitation to contemplate water as a mode of transportation in reflection of its historical ties to the cultural landscapes of Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park, as well as a threatened resource through an account of the Connecticut River as it stretches and opens to the Long Island Sound. From fresh water to salt water, what are our relationships to upstream and downstream systems? What does it mean to be bound for a destination and also bound to a place? What responsibilities do we have to the cultural landscape that sustains us?

Courtney M. Leonard: Intermodal

Benton Museum of Art, Pomona College, Claremont, CA
January 22 – May 19, 2019

Installation view of Courtney M. Leonard: Intermodal at the Pomona College Museum of Art, January 22 – May 19, 2019

In Courtney M. Leonard: Intermodal, a new installation for the Pomona College Museum of Art, Leonard continues to explore connections to and intimate histories of the aquatic environment. Intermodal (BREACH: Logbook 19) is the most recent installment of her multi-year project BREACH. Here she invites us to contemplate water as a mode of transportation, the source of food, as well as a threatened resource. In this installation, Leonard combines her work with a traditional burden basket from the College’s permanent collection and early twentieth-century photographs of indigenous life and work in this area. While identifying the connection between basketry and women’s labor and referencing traditional aquaculture techniques, Leonard’s work is adamant that we acknowledge the oceans as a critical space of globalization. This nuanced web of past and present is a continuation of BREACH, which Leonard describes as “an exploration of historical ties to water and whale, imposed law, and a current relationship of material sustainability.” In BREACH Leonard conducts a conceptual breakdown of the language, images, and cultural associations surrounding the notion of BREACH through installations, and ceramic, sculpture and video works. Her process is based in practices of documentation and collection and informed by her ongoing dialogues with cultural communities for whom the natural world incorporates land and water. BREACH re-contextualizes in material forms the memories and lived experiences of communities and their relationships with water.

Courtney M. Leonard "Abundance (Blue)", 2015, ceramic. Gift of Dr. Loren G. Lipson, T2017-72-2, steel base, ~19 x 20 x 6". Image Courtesy of the Autry Museum.

GROUNDED: Contemporary Ceramics, Gifts of Dr. Loren G. Lipson

Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA
Semi-permanent Display

Now on View
Irene Helen Jones Parks Gallery of Art

About the Special Installation

Forged from the land itself, contemporary ceramics reflect an intimate working relationship with the environment and centuries’ worth of artistic tradition. On display in the Parks Gallery as well as the Duttenhaver Case in the Autry’s lobby, GROUNDED: Contemporary Ceramics, Gifts of Dr. Loren G. Lipson will feature major examples of contemporary Native ceramics by Roxanne Swentzell (Santa Clara Pueblo), Richard Zane Smith (Wyandotte), Wallace Nez (Navajo), and Courtney Leonard (Shinnecock).

SELECT PAST EXHIBITIONS

COURTNEY M. LEONARD in Shifting Shorelines: Art, Industry, and Ecology along the Hudson River

Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University | New York, NY
October 5, 2024 – January 12, 2025
Featuring Courtney M. Leonard

Hudson River Museum
February 2, 2014 – September 1, 2024
Featuring Paul Scott, Courtney M. Leonard, & Jason Walker

COURTNEY M. LEONARD | BREACH: LOGBOOK 24 | STACCATO

University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMASS | Amherst, MA
February 14 – May 10, September 19 – December 9, 2024

COURTNEY M. LEONARD | BREACH: LOGBOOK 24 | SCRIMSHAW

New Bedford Whaling Museum | New Bedford, MA
June 14, 2024 – November 3, 2024

THE NEW TRANSCENDENCE. at Friedman Benda

Friedman Benda | New York, NY
January 11, 2024- February 24, 2024

The Heckscher Museum of Art | Huntington, NY
June 10, 2023 – November 12, 2023

2023 INTERNATIONAL CERAMIC ART FAIR (ICAF)

By the Gardiner Museum
Toronto, Ontario
June 8 – 18, 2023

Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
July 15 – September 2, 2023

Ebb/Flow: Pritika Chowdhry, Chotsani Elaine Dean and Courtney M. Leonard

Leo and Doris Hodroff Gallery
Weisman Art Museum | Minneapolis, MN
December 17, 2022 – May 31, 2025

Conversing in Clay: Ceramics from the LACMA Collection

LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
August 7, 2022 – May 21, 2023

NEWS & FEATURES

FEATURED VIDEOS

Scrimshaw Takes Over the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Summer Exhibitions

New Bedford Whaling Museum, June 3, 2024

The Wider World & Scrimshaw and Shinnecock artist Courtney M. Leonard’s BREACH: Logbook 24 | SCRIMSHAW explore sites of encounter and exchange across the Pacific and Arctic Oceans.

RECORDING | Online Artist Talk: Courtney M. Leonard & Judy Chartrand

Watch an online artist talk with Courtney M. Leonard and Judy Chartrand from the 2023 International Ceramic Art Fair, hosted by the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, Ontario.

Shinnecock artist Courtney M. Leonard explores a connection made with a right whale held in the scientific collection at UMass Amherst | The Berkshire Eagle

Shinnecock artist Courtney M. Leonard explores a connection made with a right whale held in the scientific collection at UMass Amherst The Berkshire Eagle By Jennifer Huberdeau Mar 15, 2024...

COURTNEY M. LEONARD on view in New York & Massachusetts Courtney Leonard, "BREACH: Logbook 24 | TRANSCENDENCE", 2024, Installation at Friedman Benda, New York, NY, Courtesy of Friedman Benda and...

Courtney M. Leonard featured in THE NEW TRANSCENDENCE. at Friedman Benda, New York, NY

Courtney M. Leonard featured in THE NEW TRANSCENDENCE. at Friedman Benda January 11 – February 24, 2024 Curated by Glenn Adamson Exhibition at | Friedman Benda 515 West 26th ST | ...

Courtney M. Leonard in BOUNDLESS at the Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA

Courtney M. Leonard in "BOUNDLESS" at the Mead Art Museum Courtney M. Leonard featured in Boundless is a nearly museum-wide exhibition that features work by Native American writers and artists, grounded...

'Are We There Yet?' celebrates the history and artists of Ferrin Contemporary Berkshire Eagle, Jennifer Huberdeau July 28, 2023 A JOURNEY IN CERAMICS NORTH ADAMS — Sometimes, the only way...

Courtney M. Leonard featured on NewsdayTV

VIDEO: Shinnecock artist Courtney Leonard showcases work at Heckscher Museum of Art Reported by Macy EgelandCredit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara June 2023 Watch the Interview Here "Courtney Leonard is the local...

Courtney M. Leonard featured in WSHU Public Radio

Loving whales, Shinnecock artist explores climate change through Indigenous knowledge by Marie Lynders June 22, 2023 Read the Interview Here "Leonard has opened her first retrospective art exhibition at The...

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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

May

2017

LAUREN MABRY

ON VIEW

Clocking In: 2024 Arts/Industry Residents

December 14 – March 2, 2025

John Michael Kohler Arts Center
Sheboygan, WI

Featuring work by Lauren Mabry

ARTWORK

Scrapyard No. 1

Scrapyard No. 2

Scrapyard No. 4

Glazeflow Cylinder

Green Shade No. 3

Double Lavender

Double White

Molten Cloud

Pink No. 5

ABOUT

LAUREN MABRY

FOR MORE

LAURENMABRY.COM

BIO

STATEMENTS

ABOUT

American, b. 1985, Cincinnati, OH
lives and works in Philadelphia, PA

Lauren Mabry is recognized internationally for her bold, dynamic glazes and inventive use of material, color, and form. Her ceramic vessels, objects, and dimensional paintings embrace experimentation as a way to question the boundary between abstract painting, minimalist sculpture, and process art.

Mabry is the recipient of individual grants from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, the Independence Foundation, and the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts Emerging Artist Award, and she has worked at the Jingdezhen International Studio in China and the Gaya Ceramic Art Center in Bali, Indonesia.

Mabry has shown in numerous institutions including the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, (Omaha, NE), Fuller Craft Museum (Brockton, MA) and Milwaukee Art Museum, (Milwaukee, WI), and her work is included in the collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, (Kansas City, MO), Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, (Sedalia, MO), Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, (Overland Park, KS), and Sheldon Museum of Art, (Lincoln, NE).

In 2007, Mabry completed her BFA from Kansas City Art Institute, and she received her MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2012. Mabry is represented by Pentimenti, (Philadelphia, PA), and Ferrin Contemporary.

Lauren Mabry, Artist Portrait

ON HER WORK

I make ceramic vessels, objects, and dimensional paintings by combining traditional and experimental methods with clay and glaze. I investigate materiality though experimentation that is driven by my fascination with color, visual movement, and the transformative nature of ceramics. Primarily my work communicates directly, through its formal and aesthetic qualities, but it may also be understood in relationship to abstract painting, minimal work, and Process Art. Surface is often the focal point of my work, and therefore the forms I make are a reaction to how a glaze performs. My goal is to create dynamic compositions that push the boundaries of how these materials are perceived. Because I strive to keep my work as playful as it is scientific, the things I make exist where haphazard sketching meets the accuracy of chemistry. The rich, flowing glazes create hypnotic tones, textures, and forms which aim to please and bewilder.

Lauren Mabry, Glazescape 20.04, 2020 (detail)

ON HER PROCESS

My work is predicated on a research-driven practice that investigates the history of color theory and material experimentation: to this end, I treat the vessel as a canvas, while accounting for the painful and difficult hierarchies that have kept both women artists and ceramics as a medium historically excluded from the realm of painting and sculpture. Ceramics has long been mistreated as a low art form, and it is my goal to elevate its painterly qualities through a deep and ongoing exploration of surface treatments through pigmentation, glaze chemistry, an understanding of structure and substrates, including underglazing, monoprint transfer, and glaze application, buttressed by a daily drawing practice in which mark making finds its way onto the layers and embedded into the surfaces of my vessels and sculptural constructions. My goal is to create dynamic compositions that push the boundaries of how ceramic materials have been historically perceived. The rich, flowing glazes create hypnotic tones, textures, and forms, and I aim to change the nature of the technical questions craftspeople often get: “how did you do that?” to instead “why did you do that?”

The German-born abstract painter Hans Hofmann utilized “push pull” as a phrase to describe intersecting and overlapping surfaces and geometries upon his own canvases as a means of creating pictorial space, full of expanding and contracting forces. I am particularly taken with the investigates of materiality though historical abstract expressionism like Helen Frankenthaler as well as the color theory that entered American art schools through Josef Albers and other Bauhaus-trained artists. However, I am conscious of the need to interrogate the historical absences of ceramics from these modes of expression. My experimentation is driven by my fascination with color, visual movement, and the transformative nature of ceramics. Primarily, my work communicates directly through its formal and aesthetic qualities by utilizing processes that exploit the intrinsic qualities of ceramic materials. The results are expressive, bold, and often dichotomous: haphazard yet highly calculated.

FEATURED

ARTWORKS & INSTALLATIONS

CYLINDERS

Glaze Flow Cylinder

Lauren Mabry, “Glaze Flow Cylinder,” 2021, 7.75 x 13.5 x 13″

Glaze Flow Cylinder No. 2

Lauren Mabry, “Glaze Flow Cylinder No. 2,” 2021, 7 x 15 x 12″

SPILLING FORMS

Spilling Forms

Lauren Mabry, “Contain and Deliver (into Black)” 2015, red earthenware, glaze, 13 x 19 x 17″.

Stacked Compositions

Lauren Mabry, “Stacked Compositions”, 2017, red earthenware, slips, glaze, 62 x 28 x 28″.

INSTALLATIONS

Lauren Mabry, “Untitled (Benson)”, 2018, red earthenware, slips, glaze (also, epoxy and wood), 22 x 65 x 2.5″.

Lauren Mabry, “Composition of Enclosed Cylinders” 2016, red earthenware, slips, glaze, 24 x 38 x 6″.

Lauren Mabry, “Untitled (Benson)”, 2018, red earthenware, slips, glaze (also, epoxy and wood), 22 x 65 x 2.5″.

Lauren Mabry, “Curved Planes”, 2014, red earthenware, slips, glaze, 23 x 21 x 4″.

EXHIBITIONS

RECENT & PAST EXHIBITIONS

50 Years in the Making: Alumni Exhibition at The Clay Studio, June 13th – September 1st, 2024, featuring Sergei Isupov, Paul Scott, and Lauren Mabry

50 Years in The Making: Alumni Exhibition

2024 | The Clay Studio | Philadelphia, PA

featuring work by Paul Scott, Sergei Isupov, and Lauren Mabry

This Alumni Exhibition showcases artwork to reflect the current practice of the over 150 artist who have participated in The Clay Studio’s Resident Artist Program, Guest Artist Program, and Associate Artist Program over the 50 years since its founding.

VIEW THE EXHIBITION PAGE

Chris Antemann, Sergei Isupov, Lauren Mabry in “Are We There Yet?” 2023, installation at Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA

ARE WE THERE YET?

2023 | Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA

ARE WE THERE YET? is a celebration of Ferrin Contemporary’s 40+ years as leaders in the field of modern and contemporary ceramics.

VIEW THE EXHIBITION PAGE

Lauren Mabry, “Doorway No3”, 2021, detail

LAUREN MABRY: NEW WORK

2022 | Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA

Surface is often the focal point of my work, and therefore the forms I make are a reaction to how a glaze performs. My goal is to create dynamic compositions that push the boundaries of how these materials are perceived. Because I strive to keep my work as playful as it is scientific, the things I make exist where haphazard sketching meets the accuracy of chemistry.

— Lauren Mabry

Lauren Mabry, “Doorway No. 3″, 2021, red earthenware, slip, glaze, 9.5 x 11.75 x 7”.

Lauren Mabry, “Glaze Flow Cylinder,” 2021, 7.75 x 13.5 x 13″

Lauren Mabry, “Doorway No. 1″, 2021, red earthenware, slip, glaze, 9.5 x 11 x 7”.

Lauren Mabry, “Glazescape (Double White)”, 2021, and “Glazescape (Molten Cloud)”, 2022. installation at Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. Photograph by Joel Tsui, courtesy of Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art.

A FRESH GREETING IS HEARD

July 15 to September 18, 2022 | Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design | Portland, ME

This exhibition highlights four artists who navigate realms between abstraction and figuration to tease out the disquiet and enchantment found in wild spaces, the magic of transformation, the tendency to see meaningful imagery in ambiguous forms, and the agency of natural places as vibrant actors in our collective imagination. Works in painting, ceramics and video by Leon Benn, Lauren Mabry, Allison Schulnik, and Hannah Secord Wade on view.
– Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design

VIEW THE EXHIBITION PAGE

Lauren Mabry, “Glazescape (Pink No. 4)”, 2022, installation at Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. Photograph by Joel Tsui, courtesy of Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art.

Lauren Mabry, “Glazescape (Greenshade No. 2)”, 2021, and “Glazescape (Molten Cloud)”, 2022. installation at Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. Photograph by Joel Tsui, courtesy of Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art.

Lauren Mabry, “Glazescape (Green Shade No. 3)”, 2022, installation at Institute of Contemporary Art at Main College of Art & Design. Photograph by Joel Tsui, courtesy of Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art.

Ferrin Contemporary, LAUREN MABRY: Fused, 2019, Installation View

LAUREN MABRY: FUSED

2019 | Solo Exhibition | Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA

Series of ‘dimensional paintings’ that use color, form and an exuberant sense of play to explore the transformative nature of clay.

VIEW THE EXHIBITION PAGE

Lauren Mabry, “Glaze Flow Blocks 20.02”, 2020

NATURE/NURTURE

Group Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary (North Adams, MA) | 2020 & 2021
Virtual Conference at NCECA Rivers, Reflections, and Reinvention | 2021

Group exhibition of twelve contemporary female artists invited to explore the influence of gender and its impact on their practice.

VIEW THE EXHIBITION PAGE

ON NATURE/NURTURE

As a young woman, I was emboldened to embrace my natural strengths – an independent, competitive spirit, believing that I could achieve whatever I set out to do. Born with a gift and a drive, I have made it this far because I have been nurtured by many strong women in my life, starting with my mother who always encouraged me to follow my passion for art. Along the way, my female educators never hesitated to push me even when I was struggling – Jane Shellenbarger, Cary Esser, Sanam Emami, Gail Kendall, and Margaret Bohls. My career has been continuously shaped by females, gallerists, and curators like Leslie Ferrin and Catherine Futter, who create exhibition opportunities, connections, and help put my work in important collections. Of equal importance are the many women artists who, although I haven’t known personally, have influenced my voice a great deal – Betty Woodman, Viola Frey, Karen Massaro, Lynda Benglis and many more. I am so grateful to have all of these women who have led by setting the example.

FC Artist News | LAUREN MABRY | New Works in Nature/Nurture | Cylinders & Sculptures

SELECT PAST EXHIBITIONS

ARE WE THERE YET?

Ferrin Contemporary | North Adams, MA
July 15 – September 2, 2023

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

NATURE/NURTURE

March 17 – May 29, 2021

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

LAUREN MABRY: Fused

May 4th- June 30th, 2019

VIEW THE EXHIBITION

NEWS & FEATURES

ARE WE THERE YET? Featured in the Berkshire Eagle

'Are We There Yet?' celebrates the history and artists of Ferrin Contemporary Berkshire Eagle, Jennifer Huberdeau July 28, 2023 A JOURNEY IN CERAMICS NORTH ADAMS — Sometimes, the only way...

PODCAST: Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Hosted by Ben Carter featuring Lauren Mabry 465: Fund Drive: Lauren Mabry on pushing the boundaries of glaze May 11, 2023 In this...

NATURE OF NURTURING | Notes from Director Leslie Ferrin A renewed awareness and galvanizing commitment for change is surging through American cultural and academic institutions, organizations, and businesses of every...

5 Must-See Ceramic Shows You Can View Online Artsy Editoral, Sarah Dotson April 29, 2020 "While galleries have temporarily closed worldwide due to COVID-19, we can still get inspired by...

Galleries closed due to COVID-19, but Art must go on!, Beautiful Bizarre, March 17, 2020

Galleries closed due to COVID-19, but Art must go on! Beautiful Bizarre, DANIJELA KRHA PURSSEY March 17, 2020 "Sensibly many galleries around the world have decided to close their...

"NATURE/NURTURE: Female ceramists reflect on experiences that shaped them" The Berkshire Eagle by Jennifer Huberdeau March 13, 2020 "In the late 1970s, group shows, featuring women ceramists were few and...

Ferrin Contemporary featured in The Rogovoy Report

Ferrin Contemporary Exhibition Explores Gender Influence on Female Artists By Seth Rogovoy February 25, 2020 "Nature/Nurture, an exhibition featuring works by a dozen contemporary female artists exploring the influence of...

LAUREN MABRY Featured in The Boston Globe, June 1, 2019

The Boston Globe The Ticket: What Happening in the local arts world by Cate McQuaid June 1, 2019 "Mabry’s radiantly abstract ceramics, covered with effusive gestures and protuberances dripping with...

LAUREN MABRY Featured in The Greylock Glass, June 2, 2019

It's a Painting, It's a Drawing, It's a Sculpture, It's Ceramics, It's Beautiful--Lauren Mabry: Fused by Sara Farrell Okamura The Greylock Glass June 2, 2019 "Through her own determination,...

LAUREN MABRY Featured in Berkshire Eagle, May 3, 2019

Lauren Mabry, "A 'rising star in the ceramics world'" by Jennifer Huberdeau, Berkshire Eagle, May 3, 2019. "While most ceramic artist see glaze as the thing that finishes a piece,...

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

EVA XV

RECENTLY ON VIEW

ABOUT “EVA XV”

More on Cristina Córdova HERE

FAUNA

RECENTLY ON VIEW

ABOUT “FAUNA”

More on Jacqueline Bishop HERE

NEWS

New Acquisition: Fauna by Jacqueline Bishop

NARRATIVES OF MIGRATION

ABOUT “THE NARRATIVES OF MIGRATION”

More on Jacqueline Bishop HERE

NEWS

UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING: HUMILITY AND GRANDEUR IN CONTEMPORARY CERAMICS

Traveling exhibition shown nationally | 2023 – Present

Featuring work by

Grand Rapids Art Museum | Grand Rapids, MI | October 7 – January 14, 2023

FEATURING RAE STERN

More on Rae Stern HERE

ABOUT RAE STERN

ALL ARTISTS

VIRTUAL TOUR

PRESS & PUBLICATIONS

UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING

PAST PROGRAMMING

Anna K. Meredith Gallery, Des Moines Art Center | Des Moines, IA | June 3 – September 10, 2023

UNDERNEATH EVERYTHING

EXHIBITION CATALOG

Underneath Everything Humility and Grandeur in Contemporary Ceramics Catalog

Catalog Preview

ON VIEW

INSTALLATIONS & SERIES

2024 – 2025 | Solo Exhibition at Anderson Gallery, Bridgewater State University

Traditional Family

We Are All from The Sky

Modern Family

Family Chess

FIGURAL SCULPTURE

Hidden Messages

Game Changer

Puppeteer

Silver Anniversary

ANDROGYNY

HEADS & BUSTS

Soul of the Planet

Heritage

Busker

Chosen One

Guardian

Horsepower

Man

Midnight Son

HUMANIMALS

Close Your Eyes, Open Your Eyes

Butterfly Catcher

Burden II

Life’s Work

Strong

Amaco

2022 | Solo Exhibition at Ferrin Contemporary

Past & Present

Full Moon Addiction

Like An Eternity

Marriage for the Ages

LARGE WORKS, INSTALLATIONS, & TABLEAUS

Lips Eyes Ear Eyebrow

Woodblock & Print | Installation

Directions

Coffee & Milk

On the Way

PUBLIC ARTWORK

MAIN STREET | CUMMINGTON, MA

Everything is Upside Down

Miss Comet

Branch Dragon

WORKS ON PAPER | PRINTS

SERGEI ISUPOV

ABOUT

ANDROGYNY SERIES

**New Acquisition: Fauna by Jacqueline Bishop**