Sergei Isupov’s figurative porcelain and stoneware sculptures use the material in differing ways. The artist sometimes uses the surface to create 2D renderings, and elsewhere, the characters are three-dimensional. More recently, some of the works do both on the same piece.
The show Sergei Isupov: Hidden Messages runs at Erie Art Museum in Pennsylvania through April 2. The show offers a career survey for the artist, spanning 20 years. Included in that collection are recent larger-than-life and smaller works. “Exquisitely painted with Isupov’s peculiar and fascinating imagery, the work is created with traditional slab-building techniques, pushing ceramic material to its limits,” the museum says
“Working instinctually and using my observations, I create a new, intimate universe that reveals the relationships, connections and contradictions as I perceive them,” Isupov says, in a statement. “I find clay to be the most versatile material and it is well suited to the expression of my ideas. I consider my sculptures to be a canvas for my paintings. All the plastic, graphic and painting elements of a piece function as complementary parts of the work.”
