“I am a student of the universe and a participant in the harmonic chaos of contrasts and opposites: dark – light; male – female; good – evil.” Sergei Isupov’s artist statement reflects the complexities portrayed in his narrative porcelain sculptures as well as his own cultural background.
As part of the Visiting Artist Series, Isupov led a demo as well as a lecture in Bedford Hall on April 3 and April 4.
Isupov was born in Stavrapole, Russia and later immigrated to the United States in 1993. While growing up in the Ukraine, he earned formal training in painting and ceramics and later received a Bachelor’s of Art and a Master’s of Fine Arts from the Estonian Academy of Arts.
His sculptures often feature men and women with enlarged heads, serious and almost worried eyes and soft, underwhelming colors that are stained over a clear glaze. Surreal and moody, the bodies are stretched and foreshortened with smaller characters sometimes painted overtop the clay form.
About growing up in the Ukraine as a budding artist, Isupov said, “I grew up in a country where art was really respectable. In the old Soviet Union, to be an artist was a great place to be. People made a pretty great living too because usually they worked for commission, worked for the government or for propaganda, and that pays really good too.” He further stated, “They changed so much now after this perestroika. It’s funny how year by year, everything changed.”
The perestroika was a movement lead by Mikhail Gorbachev during the 1980s that involved the political and economic restructuring within the Soviet Union. The movement led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union as well as economic struggles.
After moving to the United States, it became more difficult to be as open about being an artist as a career.
“If you say you’re an artist, they [Americans] sort of feel sorry for you,” said Isupov.
In the Ukraine, he said, “They don’t have much, and they don’t eat much.” He described the lifestyle as simple and with low expectations. Expectations for artists and quality in life in general are much higher in the United States, creating more pressure and more judgment.
As a working artist, Isupov said, “If you do what you like to do, you don’t expect much. You already have fun, and if you find a way for people to pay for this, that’s like extra.”
Isupov currently lives in Massachusetts. He has been featured in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Mass., the Charles A. Wustum
Museum of Fine Arts in Racine, Wis., the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, N.Y. and more. Isupov has various awards, including the Smithsonian Craft Show Top Award for Excellence and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award.
