Joe Ferriso Lost & Found

Eleanor Harwood Gallery is pleased to announce Joe Ferriso’s solo exhibition with the gallery.

Lost & Found is where things wash ashore. Some are precious, some purposely discarded, all full of backstory. I see everything as a potential medium for expression, and the analogy of searching and finding feels like an apt parallel for my art-making. Wood and paint are materials people surround themselves with. We run to them for comfort and run from them for change. The leftovers of construction are plentiful. Making speculative architectural patterns with them feels celebratory to me.

Driftwood, too, is inherently a castaway. Its original form is often streamlined, reduced, made stronger and smoother. I see the found elements of driftwood and construction waste as related. These fragments of growth and labor are shaped in part by chance, place, and circumstance. In responding to their shape, color, and texture, I seek the placement that reorients the material.

The artworks assembled here grew out of family outings to the beach, solo walks past construction sites, and conversations with neighbors and friends about things they need to get rid of. The backstory matters deeply to me. Where do things come from, and why do we hold onto them? Each time I make a piece of artwork, it becomes a kind of time capsule, bearing witness to events in my life, in our community, and in the world. I like to think that my artwork finds me, and hopefully finds its way to others as well.

Artist Bio

Joe Ferriso was born on Long Island, NY, in 1981 and graduated from The Cooper Union (BFA 2003). After graduation, he worked as a fine-art framer in Manhattan and led after-school mural workshops at The Point in the South Bronx. He moved to the Bay Area in 2009 and co-founded Anzfer Farms, an experimental design/build studio, with Jonathan Anzalone. In 2016, he returned to school to study at Stanford University (MFA 2018). Ferriso has attended residencies at Facebook A.I.R.(2014) Cité International, Paris, France (2018), and Real Time and Space (2019). His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in exhibitions in Los Angeles, CA, with Daniel Weinberg Gallery, in New York at Brilliant Champions and Pompei, and numerous exhibitions in the Bay Area, including Gallery 16, BAMPFA, Park Life Gallery, Traywick Contemporary, Qualia Contemporary Art, and many others. His fabrication/design work is in the collection of The Hammer Museum, LA, and the BAMPFA reading room. His artwork is in the collection of many private individuals across the country. He lives with his wife, two young children, and a dog in Sebastopol, CA. He is an Adjunct Lecturer of Painting and Sculpture at Sonoma State University.

About Eleanor Harwood Gallery
Eleanor Harwood Gallery opened September 2006 in the Mission District and is now located in San Francisco’s premier gallery complex, the Minnesota Street Project. The gallery specializes in work with complex craft and concept, exhibiting painting, drawing, sculpture, textiles and photography by emerging to mid-career artists. The roster includes artists that are represented in major American, European and Asian collections. The gallery actively promotes and encourages career growth for represented artists.

Location
1275 Minnesota Street, Suite 105, San Francisco, CA 94107

Hours
Tuesday-Saturday 11 am-5:00 pm and by appointment

Contact
(p) 415.867.7770
(e) eleanor@eleanorharwood.com