Art Across Borders: An Artist Talk with Sergei Isupov

Show Opening: Friday April 25, 6-8 PM
Show Run: April 25 - May 25, 2025

This April, District Clay Center and the Embassy of Estonia are proud to present an artist talk with internationally renowned artist Sergei Isupov. Hosted at the Embassy of Estonia, Isupov's illustrated artist talk will begin at 5:30 PM. A Q&A session and small reception will follow with light snacks. This event is free and open to the public in conjunction with Isupov's solo exhibition at District Clay Center, .

*Interested viewers must RSVP by 11:59 PM on Saturday, April 19.

About Moments from Eternity:
Isupov’s features a selection of pedestal-based ceramic sculptures alongside a new wall installation created for the exhibition. , the corresponding workshop, will allow participants to learn the techniques Isupov uses to sculpt these porcelain masterworks.

Moments from Eternity marks a sort of homecoming for Isupov. The artist first immigrated to the US in 1994, landing in Louisville, Kentucky. Isupov quickly proved a tour de force in American ceramics; his work garnered significant praise at Washington, DC’s 1996 Smithsonian Craft Show, where he was presented with the Smithsonian Craft Show Top Award for Excellence. In 1997, Isupov moved to Richmond, Virginia, where he created his Humanimals series, blending different animals into anthropomorphic sculptures. Isupov was interviewed for the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art Oral History Program in 2010, cementing his status as an essential artist in the US’s rich history of visual arts. He now spends three months a year based in Estonia and the rest of the year working in his studio at Project Art, the ceramic art center he established in Western Massachusetts with gallery director Leslie Ferrin.

​Artistically, this exhibition marks a displacement from home. The work in Moments from Eternity reflects on Isupov’s life experiences as an Estonian-American artist, documenting his life as a multinational dual citizen. Born in Russia during the USSR, raised in Kyiv, Ukraine, and educated in Tallinn, Estonia, Isupov emigrated to begin a new life in 1994. Sergei’s recent sculptures and installation capture the atmosphere in the wake of Russian aggression near his families in Ukraine and Estonia.

Sculpted in the round, Isupov’s tableaus present nonlinear and often cryptic narratives. A combination of carefully modeled porcelain and intricately painted figures blur the boundaries between 2D and 3D; figure and ground; literal and metaphorical. Nature Is Within Us, pictured above, presents an exemplary scene. In the foreground, a man and woman sit at a table while staring pensively into the distance. Without sharing the intricacies of the pair’s relationship, Isupov directs the viewer’s attention to the elephant in the room: namely, a gargantuan cat prancing behind the couple as the building burns around them. On the reverse of the piece, the room’s wallpaper becomes the cage of an agitated monkey. This push and pull between quotidian relationships and allegorical drama is characteristic of Isupov’s œuvre. What to make of the scene is left up to the viewer.

Ever hopeful, Isupov’s works capture life’s challenges with universal human emotions, telling stories across time and place. Moments from Eternity presents Isupov’s emotional landscapes in stunning ceramic sculpture, busts, and portraits.

About Sergei Isupov:

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is an Estonian-American sculptor internationally known for his highly detailed, narrative works. Isupov explores painterly figure-ground relationships, creating surreal sculptures with a complex artistic vocabulary that combines two- and three-dimensional narratives and animal/human hybrids. He works in ceramics using traditional hand-building and sculpting techniques to combine surface and form with narrative painting using colored stains highlighted with clear glaze.

Isupov has a long international resume with work included in numerous collections and exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Australia, Museum Angewandte in Kunst, Germany, and in the US at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Crocker Art Museum, Everson Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Museum of Arts and Design, Museum of Fine Arts–Boston, Museum of Fine Arts–Houston, Mint Museum of Art, and Racine Art Museum. In 2017, his solo exhibition at The Erie Art Museum presented selected works in a 20-year career survey titled Hidden Messages, followed by Surreal Promenade, another survey solo in 2019 at the Russian Museum of Art in Minnesota.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Embassy of Estonia, 2131 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, Washington, United States