Elise Ferguson
Elise Ferguson
Workspace Program Resident 2003
“The experience opened up several new avenues in my studio practice.” —Elise Ferguson, 2003
Mostly abstract, Ferguson’s work, both flat and sculptural, uses repetitive shape and pattern as part of the larger whole. Her visual elements are frequently derived from architecture and industrial design and produced using various materials: wood, urethane, vinyl and now handmade paper. The resulting sculptures are conglomerates, formed by constructing her "building blocks" into colorful assemblies that riff on still life.
At Dieu Donné, Ferguson first created black on black works utilizing leftover hand-cast resin tiles from her installation at Socrates Sculpture Park. The tiles, glued to a mesh backing, were used to emboss a freshly made, thick, black cotton sheet in the hydraulic press. The sheet was then dried against the tiles, resulting in a beautiful, minimalist image, with the paper taking on a sheen where pressed against the smooth tile surface. Next, Ferguson executed a group of brightly colored, narrowly striped sheets of paper. Using Mylar strips to cover the entire surface of a wet sheet of cotton paper, the artist lifted the strips in sequence, filling each open stripe with pigmented linen pulp paint. Once the pulp painted area drained, the Mylar strip was replaced, and the adjacent were filled in succession. The resulting striped sheets were cut and used to construct a three dimensional sculpture in the artist’s studio.
In the Studio
About the Artist
Elise Ferguson (b. 1964, Richmond, Virginia) received a her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1988 and a MFA University of Illinois at Chicago in 1995.
She has been awarded solo exhibitions at the Halsey McKay Gallery, Romer Young Gallery and 57W57 Arts, Monya Rowe Gallery. Group exhibitions include Albada Jelgersma in Amsterdam, Ikast Kunstpakhus in Denmark, Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, Sculpture Center, Socrates Sculpture Park, Barton Art Galleries, and University Galleries, Illinois State, among others. She has been recognized with several awards, including a Northern Trust Purchase Prize, an EAST International exhibition grant, and residencies at Barton College, University of Nevada Las Vegas, MacDowell Colony, Illinois State University, Socrates Sculpture Park, and Dieu Donné. She is represented by Halsey McKay Gallery in East Hampton and Romer Young Gallery in San Francisco. The artist currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
For more information, please visit their website: http://www.eliseferguson.org/