Jon Isherwood:
Isherwood’s work has been widely exhibited in public museums and private galleries in US, Canada, Europe and China. A recipient of a Jerome Foundation Fellowship, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation award, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of New York at Plattsburgh. His sculptures have recently been exhibited on Broadway NYC, The Duomo, Barga Italy,Villa Strozzi, Florence, Italy, Ping Yao II, China; The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Mass, Milan Design week Autodesk Milan, Italy and in Belgrave Square, London, UK.
He has had over 25 solo exhibitions, including Pamela Salisbury gallery, Hudson,NY, Morrison gallery Kent CT, Reeves Contemporary in NYC, John Davis Gallery in NYC; Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore; Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum in Hamilton, OH. He has been featured in many group exhibitions, including The Italian Stone theatre, Verona, Italy, Museum of sculpture and Architecture, Italy, The Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, Italy; The McNay Museum, San Antonio, TX; and Kunsthalle, Manheim, Germany. 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 the university of Cincinnati,Ohio, New Jersey Public art, Capital One investments, USA, The US State department Art in Embassies program for the new Embassy in Oslo Norway and Chiang Mai Thailand, 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, The Art Newspaper, Art in America, Art News, The Artful mind, The Washington Post, The New York Sun, The arts management magazine, Time Out NYC, Sculpture Magazine, Partisan Reviews, The Philadelphia Enquirer, London Times and in The Guardian, UK. He has made personal appearances including WAMC Public Radio, The Culture Show, BBC Television, NY1and CBS NY. He has lectured at numerous Colleges and Universities in the U.S, Europe and China. Jon is the President and founding member of the Digital Stone Project.
Artist Statement:
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.