Ferrin Contemporary

05/30/2026

ARTIST NEWS: SERGEI ISUPOV Moderne Gallery, Alex J. Ettl Grant, and The Portal Gallery at Project Art

Philadelphia represents a special place for artists and is particularly meaningful for Sergei Isupov. It is where his work was first introduced to America in 1992, and it is now where an important collection of his early works are available in Moderne Gallery's "Subconscious Surfaced". Writing for the exhibition's catalog provided me with the opportunity to interview Isupov about his early life in the USSR, reflect on the the work he produced in his first USA studios, and the impact of the ongoing war on his families in Ukraine and Estonia.

Contemporary East European Ceramics at The Clay Studio was the first survey of 74 artists from the former Eastern Bloc countries. Held in Philadelphia during the annual NCECA conference, it was attended by thousands of ceramicists and inspired American artists to travel to clay studios and symposiums throughout Eastern Europe. We discussed establishing his studios in Kentucky and Virginia where the works, now featured in the exhibition, were produced, as well as the path that led to our work together and eventually to Project Art in Cummington, MA - Leslie Ferrin, director notes

In today's newsletter, we share news about Subconscious Surfaced, Isupov's recent Alex J. Ettl Grant awarded by the National Sculpture Society, and "Mama Cat," featured in the inaugural exhibition in The Portal Gallery, the latest public art installation at Project Art in the Cummington Cultural District.

SUBCONSCIOUS SURFACED On view May 1, 2026 – August 29, 2026 Opening Reception: Friday, May 1, 2026 | 5 – 7 pm Moderne Gallery 1705 N American St. STE 3 Philadelphia, PA

05/26/2026

SERGEI ISUPOV featured at in Philadelphia.

“Ceramic works by Sergei Isupov on view as part of our latest exhibition Subconscious Surfaced.

Sergei Isupov occupies a prominent position in international contemporary ceramics, known for his extraordinary ability to marry three-dimensional sculpture with narrative painting. Born into a family of artists and educated across Ukraine and Estonia during the Soviet era, Isupov immigrated to the United States in 1994. His porcelain works, characterized by hand-built forms and intricate stain-and-glaze paintings, explore the complexities of the human psyche and the body. In light of recent geopolitical conflicts in Ukraine and Estonia, his work has taken on a renewed urgency, serving as a visceral, creative response to the anxieties of war and the fragility of peace.

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Subconscious Surfaced, a group exhibition featuring works from the 1960s through the early 2000s, explores a shared thread of surreal, otherworldly sculptural form across a range of expressions, techniques, and contexts.”

Photography by

05/12/2026

NOW ON VIEW: Sally Silberberg: Shifting Ground at Berry Campbell
Curated by Glenn Adamson

Berry Campbell is pleased to present a focused exhibition of porcelain sculptures by Sally Silberberg, an extraordinary and largely unseen body of work that marks a pivotal moment in the artist’s practice. The exhibition is curated by Glenn Adamson, an independent curator, writer, and historian, and previously Director of the Museum of Arts and Design and Head of Research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The exhibition is accompanied by a 72-page catalogue.

Created during the 1980s, a concentrated period of experimentation for Silberberg, these sculptures are a decisive shift away from functional ceramics and toward a radical new sculptural language. After years of working on the potter’s wheel, Silberberg developed a new method built from solid blocks of porcelain. Layered with pigment, cut, torn, and carved, each work introduces both risk and unpredictability and pushes porcelain to its structural and perceptual limits.

Sally Silberberg is a longtime friend and colleague of Ferrin Contemporary. We are so excited to see this exhibition come to fruition, congratulations, Sally!

Sally Silberberg: Shifting Ground
April 23 – May 30, 2026

ARTIST TALK WITH CURATOR GLENN ADAMSON
Saturday, May 16 | 3PM
Berry Campbell
524 W 26th Street, New York, NY

05/06/2026

MARA SUPERIOR | ON VIEW AT THE MET

We are thrilled to announce a recent acquisition to The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Mara Superior's “The Pursuit of Happiness”. Originally commissioned by Barry and Merle Ginsburg, and most recently shown at Shelburne Museum as part of “Porcelain Love Letters: The Art of Mara Superior”, the work has been generously acquired and will remain on view in the American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 2012, Barry and Merle Ginsburg commissioned Superior to create an all-American tribute to the founding fathers and the best of 18th century American democratic ideals. Completed in 2015, the architectural stacked porcelain commemorative sculpture uses symbols and references drawn from history and decorative arts including miniature presidential portraits, busts, The Declaration of Independence, and an apple pie.

“’The Pursuit of Happiness’ is Superior’s most detailed and ambitious work yet. It stands out not just because of its size but because of its powerful, nonpartisan, patriotic message. She describes it as “a commemorative celebration of the American idea, the great experiment, the system—three branches of government, checks and balances, Grecian democracy dependent on an educated citizenry.”
-Kory Rogers, Francie & John Downing Senior Curator of American Art at Shelburne Museum

Congratulations Mara on this exceptional addition to one of America’s most influential institutions; located, fittingly, in Mara’s home city.

“The Pursuit of Happiness”
2012-2014
high-fired porcelain, ceramic oxides, underglaze, glaze, glaze, wood, gold leaf, brass, bone, paper
27.5 x 25 x 20″

04/30/2026

SUBCONSCIOUS SURFACED
at Moderne Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Over the past 3 years, Ferrin Contemporary has had the pleasure of working with the collection of Marc & Diane Grainer, collectors of contemporary ceramics, studio furniture and craft from 1970-present. Their generous gifts have provided support and helped establish collections of American and British studio craft at numerous museums throughout the US.

Opening Friday, May 1, 2026 at Moderne Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, selected works from the Grainer’s and other private collections are featured in “Subconscious Surfaced”. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with an introduction by Moderne Gallery and two essays by curator of Ceramics at the Everson Museum of Art, Garth Johnson, and Ferrin Contemporary Director, Leslie Ferrin.

Please join us at Moderne Gallery with Marc & Diane Grainer to celebrate their contributions to the world of contemporary surrealist ceramics and studio craft.

“Over the course of 45 years, Marc and Diane Grainer collected functional and sculptural ceramics and juxtaposed them with studio furniture and textiles and household items that invariably bore the imprint of their maker. Although they are perhaps best known for their encyclopedic collection of British studio pottery, the Grainers consistently chose work by artists who draw from the Surrealist well like Sergei Isupov, Michael Lucero, Nancy Carman, and Sun Koo Yuh. Each of these artists mixes and matches strategies like chance operations, including automatism, dream logic, juxtaposing seemingly unrelated elements, and metamorphizing their subjects.”
–Garth Johnson, Curator of Ceramic Art, Everson Museum of Art

Opening Reception:
Friday, May 1, 2026 | 5 – 7 pm

Moderne Gallery
1705 N American St. STE 3
Philadelphia, PA

04/20/2026

AVAILABLE FROM PRIVATE COLLECTIONS | AKIO TAKAMORI

Over the last two years, Ferrin Contemporary has worked with numerous collectors downsizing through deacquisitions and generous gifts to museums and institutions across the USA.

With each collection we work to combine sales and gifts to find the right balance. With gifts, we are witness to the steady process and dedication of curators as they consider how these artworks fit into and are subsequently added to their collections. These efforts continue as exhibitions are curated, catalogs published, and permanent collections reinterpreted.

This week we are excited to share two works by Akio Takamori that are available for sale from the collection of Marc & Diane Grainer. To inquire to purchase, please email [email protected] to request pricing and information.

1 & 2: Akio Takamori, “Lovers Teapot”, circa 1991, porcelain, 11 x 8.5 x 8”, John P***k Photography

3 & 4: Akio Takamori, “Man & Woman Teapot”, 1991, porcelain, 9 x 9”, John P***k Photography

Akio Takamori
(b. 1950, Nobeoka, Miyazaki, Japan, d. 2017, Seattle, WA)
Takamori was a seminal figure in ceramic art, whose work over the past thirty years has left an enduring impact on the Pacific Northwest arts and the medium itself. His work is often autobiographical, drawing on his life in Japan, his family, and mythological themes. He is known for his coil-built figurative sculptures in which the narrative painting defines the form. Takamori explored themes of cultural identity by engaging the history of Eastern and Western aesthetics. Bold form and color defines his body of work, which is highly expressive of human emotion and sensuality. Takamori was a professor of art at the University of Washington. He lived and worked in Seattle.

04/17/2026

AVAILABLE FROM PRIVATE COLLECTIONS | KURT WEISER

Kurt Weiser’s, “Confidential”, is one of Kurt’s mid career masterworks. His classic jar form is beautifully illustrated with a sepia toned painted narrative with colorful china painted highlights. Newly available from a private collection it is available in our upcoming catalog OBJECT STORIES 2026 featuring works by Kurt and artists offered by collectors, estates and artist archives.

“Confidential”, 1997, porcelain, 18 x 12 x 12”, made in the Artist’s studio(1997) to Frank Lloyd Gallery, to a Private Collection (1998).

Thia work is on view this Spring at the Figge Art Museum (Davenport, IA), in “A Golden Age for Whom?”. The exhibition will also include recent works by by Beth Lipman and Mara Superior .

To inquire about pricing and shipping information after the exhibition’s closing, please email [email protected].

ABOUT KURT WEISER
Kurt Weiser’s ceramic work draws inspiration from rich evocations of plant life to narratives derived from myth and history, placed into highly detailed tropical landscapes. These images are meticulously painted onto porcelain teapots, globes and other vessels. As Weiser notes “the painting is the three-dimensional reality”.

Weiser has shown internationally and throughout the United States, including solo exhibitions at the Montgomery Museum of Art (Montgomery, AL) the Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland, OR) and the Holter Museum of Art (Helena, MT). His work can be found in numerous public collections, including Smithsonian Institution, Alfred University School of Ceramics, and the Los Angeles Museum of Art among many others. Weiser received his M.F.A. from the University of Michigan and recently retired from the position of Regents Professor of Art at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

A Golden Age for Whom?
May 30, 2026 – September 20, 2026
Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA
featuring Beth Lipman, Mara Superior, & Kurt Weiser

04/15/2026

ON VEW & RECENT ACQUISITION | Raymon Elozua’s “R&D II”

A special thank you to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art for acquiring Raymon Elozua’s dynamic multimedia sculpture, “R&D II”. We are thrilled that this work has found a new home at the AMFA, now on view as part of their Permanent Collection.

ABOUT RAYMON
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.

Raymon Elozua
“R&D II”
2014
Ceramic, glaze, steel & glass
33 x 29 x 46”
On view at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation Collection: Gift of the artist. 2025.032.

01/08/2026

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER opens this weekend at HB381 in New York
featuring Paul Scott & Caroline Slotte

HB381 is pleased to announce “One Way or Another”, a two-person exhibition of new ceramic works by Paul Scott (b. 1953, United Kingdom) and Caroline Slotte (b. 1975, Finland). Slotte studied ceramics with Scott when he was a professor at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design in the early 2000s and their practices have dovetailed in various ways since. Both artists invoke the storied space of European porcelain and faience wares as a repository of cultural mores and readymade imagery. Collectively, they draw on the history of objects as an apt framework for parsing psychological and political affairs of the present day. While their techniques for altering these historic objects find different expressions, their attention to this space of visual and material culture is equally acute, feeding into discourses on craft and cultural studies and museological concerns around heritage and preservation.

“One Way or Another” is presented in collaboration with Ferrin Contemporary.

“One Way or Another”
January 9 – February 28, 2026
HB381
381 Broadway, New York, NY

OPENING RECEPTION
January 9th, 2026, 6-8pm EST
This event is free and open to the public.
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1: Paul Scott & Caroline Slotte Combined image for One Way or Another exhibition, 2026
2: Caroline Slotte, studio detail
3: Paul Scott, ‘Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, New York from Brooklyn (After Beth Katleman)’ 3, 2020
4: Caroline Slotte, Fade, 2025
5: Paul Scott, “Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s), New American Scenery, Castle Garden Battery, New York, after Enoch Wood (triptych)” 2019
6: Caroline Slotte, American Skies (Philadelphia), 2025
7: Paul Scott, “Cumbrian Blue(s), The Garden Series, Bridgeless/Bridge” 2019