BSR_S06E08 - Sculptor, Michael Ferris

Broad Street Review, The Podcast

“Extra-Human: The Art of Michael Ferris” features larger-than-life figurative sculptures that Ferris created by fusing reclaimed discarded wood and pigmented grout through environmentally-conscious methods. The exhibition embodies a rich diffusion of cultural and artistic traditions and celebrates people’s heroism in our everyday lives. Originally trained as a painter, Ferris embraced sculpture 25 years ago and developed an inlay technique of his own making, inspired by intarsia woodworking familiar to his Middle-Eastern heritage. Ferris enlists his self-invented mosaic design to enliven finely carved portraits of family and friends, capturing the subject’s inner life through subtly choreographed patterning. This merger of realism and decorative splendor fulfills the artist’s aim to highlight both a person’s psychological and spiritual complexities.

Michael Ferris’s work has been exhibited widely throughout the nation at notable institutions including the Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois; The Bronx Museum in New York; The Queens Museum of Art in New York; ATM Gallery in New York; Katonah Art Museum in New York; de Young Museum in San Francisco, California; and The Illinois State Museums in Illinois. He has received awards from numerous organizations including the New York Foundation for the Arts (2009), The George Sugarman Foundation (2005), and the American Craft Council (2002). Ferris’s work can be found in public collections at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, CA; Illinois State Museum in Springfield, IL; and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR. His exhibitions have been featured in The New York Times, The New York Daily News, and The Chicago Tribune.

Guest-curated by art historian Suzanne Ramljak, the collection will display a dozen of Ferris’s distinctive wood sculptures, related drawings, and painted portraits set in intricately inlaid frames. The exhibition will be available to view from November 5, 2021, through April 24, 2022 at The Center for Art in Wood, 141 N 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://centerforartinwood.org/exhibition/extra-human-the-art-of-michael-ferris/