Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, October 11, 2023: Jon Isherwood, a British sculptor (#1928)

Jon Isherwood (1960) is a British (active in USA) Postwar & Contemporary artist. His work has been widely exhibited in public museums and private galleries in US, Canada, Europe and China. He is the recipient of a Jerome Foundation Fellowship, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation award and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of New York at Plattsburgh. His sculpture has recently been exhibited at Villa Strozzi, Florence, Italy, The National Archaeological museum, Florence Italy, Ping Yao II, China; The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum Boston Mass and in Belgrave Square, London, UK.

He has had over 25 solo exhibitions, including Reeves Contemporary in NYC, John Davis Gallery in NYC; The C. Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore; Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum in Hamilton, OH. He has been featured in many group exhibitions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, Italy. His work can be found in more than 25 public collections.

Isherwood has completed over 30 commissions in the private and public sector including a recent commission for New Jersey Public art, Capital One investments, USA, the US State department Art in Embassies program for the new Embassy in Oslo Norway, The Peninsula hotel, Beijing China, Public Art San Antonio, Fidelity investment UK, BCA, St Paul MN and The Woodner Memorial sculpture at the Evening Star building Washington DC. Isherwood’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, ArtNews, The Washington Post, The New York Sun, Sculpture Magazine, Partisan Reviews, The Philadelphia Enquirer, London Times and in The Guardian, UK. He has made personal appearances on shows featuring his work, including WAMC Public Radio and The Culture Show, BBC Television, UK. He has lectured at numerous colleges and universities in the U.S, Europe and China. He teaches at Bennington College VT and is the President of the Digital Stone Project.

Isherwood’s most recent sculptures represent the further development of his ongoing dialogue with the associative sensations of form and surface. Forms are compressed, distorted, or squeezed, and made more intimate by subtle adjustments of scale. He does not imitate the body; however, the sensual aspect of the manipulated shape proposes physicality to the viewer even in the absence of figuration. Carved lines contour the surfaces to emphasize the form, create the illusion of expansiveness and provoke associations to patterning, layering and veiled imagery. We are invited to investigate the visual grasp of intuitive perception.

The tension between shape and skin that characterizes Isherwood’s work is further reflected in the tensions surrounding his technique and material. His sculptures are the result of a unique process in which the ancient and the modern confront one another: marble, the oldest and most sensual sculptural material, is carved with the help of high-tech methods. This allows Isherwood to attain an uncompromised precision in his treatment of the incised surfaces, which play with and against the swelling, fleshy, soft and yet substantial character of his organic forms.

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