Laura Paulini & Jill Sylvia – Allegories of Control

Eleanor Harwood Gallery is pleased to announce an Artist talk and Q&A featuring Joe Ferriso and Stewart Pittman. Please join us on Saturday, May 2nd, from 5-6 pm.

About Joe Ferriso:

Embracing play, freedom, and optimism, Joe Ferriso's sculptural and painted works are primarily concerned with how color perception impacts emotion. Ferriso’s subject is the relationship between architecture and nature, expressed in the language of color. His love for tuning color and the sheer energy of color motivates his actions. Like a vine to a lattice, his color enmeshes with the art object, bringing it to life. 

Ferriso works in series that emerge and recede at their own pace, driven by his previous experiments. His most recent works are condition-sensitive pieces in pursuit of a sublime experience, generating mystery from the mundane. The materials that he works with are discards or found in nature. Construction waste, building off-cuts, driftwood, found wood, and abandoned paint colors are the starting points of his labor.

Ferriso moved to the Bay Area in 2009 and is a graduate of The Cooper Union (BFA 2003) and Stanford University (MFA 2018). 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 Steuart Pittman

Born and raised in the Midwest, Steuart Pittman currently lives and works in Richmond, CA. He earned his MFA from Mills College, where he was awarded the prestigious Jay DeFeo MFA Prize. His work has received numerous accolades, including the Peter S. Reed Foundation Award in Painting and multiple nominations for the SFMoMA SECA Award.  In addition to his studio practice, Pittman has held a variety of jobs within the Bay Area art world over the past two decades. He is the Director and Co-Founder of Pacific Saw Works, a curatorial project that showcases contemporary Californian painters.