josephferriso{at}gmail.com
Joe Ferriso grew up in a household with roots in Dominican, Honduran, and Italian heritage in a middle-class, conservative community on Long Island, NY. His parents were deeply involved in a Christian fundamentalist doomsday cult during his childhood, which guided his development into art making. Drawing during church services and skateboarding after school provided an outlet for processing his experiences with authority and doctrine.
Embracing play, freedom, and optimism, his sculptural and painted works are primarily concerned with how color perception impacts emotion. Ferriso’s subject is the relationship between architecture and nature, expressed in the language of color. His love for tuning color and the sheer energy of color motivates his actions. Like a vine to a lattice, his color enmeshes with the art object, bringing it to life.
Ferriso works in series that emerge and recede at their own pace, driven by his previous experiments. His most recent works are condition-sensitive pieces in pursuit of a sublime experience, generating mystery from the mundane. The materials that he works with are discards or found in nature. Construction waste, building off-cuts, driftwood, found wood, and abandoned paint colors are the starting points of his labor.
Ferriso moved to the Bay Area in 2009 and is a graduate of The Cooper Union (BFA 2003) and Stanford University (MFA 2018). He lives with his wife, two young children, and a dog in Sebastopol, CA. He is an Adjunct Lecturer of Painting and Sculpture at Sonoma State University.
Solo Exhibitions
2025 - One is Two, Two is Three at Pacific Saw Works, Oakland, CA
2024 - Do the Trees Wonder at Escolar, Santa Rosa, CA
2023 - Through the Trees at TSR Lodge, The Sea Ranch, CA
2022 - Associate at Park Life Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2021 - Relating to the hours at Pompei, Brooklyn, NY
2021 - Every day a doorway at LyndonDesign Gallery, The Sea Ranch, CA
2018 – Cutaway at Gallery 16, San Francisco, CA
2017 - Recent Works at Park Life Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2015 - Ajar at Park Life Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2013 - The Partly at Mesa, San Francisco, CA
2011 - Superbities at Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2010 - I Used to Really Like Pablo Picasso at Heliopolis, Brooklyn, NY
Group Exhibitions
2025
A Living Room at Qualia Contemporary Art, Palo Alto, CA
2024
Holiday Show at Marrow Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Flights of Fancy at Dominican University Library Gallery, San Rafael, CA
Imagined Landscapes at And A Tangerine, San Francisco, CA
Vessel at Pallas Annex and Fig & Oak, San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA
2023
Faculty Exhibition at Sonoma State University Art Gallery, Rohnert Park, CA
2022
(two-person) Solace at Qualia Contemporary, Palo Alto, CA
2021
Mergers at LyndonDesign Gallery, The Sea Ranch, CA
Frequence of Sequence at All of Us Projects, online gallery: link here
2020
Later Days at Embark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Art Kala 2020 auction benefit, Oakland, CA
2019
Secret Santa at Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA
The Long Look at Bass & Reiner, San Francisco, CA
Wall Space X, NY(G), Brooklyn, NY
2018
Summer Survey at Traywick Contemporary, Berkeley, CA
Where Here at Stanford Art Gallery, Stanford, CA
Rule no Rule at Embark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Drift at Brilliant Champions, New York, NY
Fort Mason Firehouse at Sienna Patti Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2017
Linchpin at Space 151, San Francisco, CA
Group Hang at The Lab, San Francisco, CA
NFS at Incline Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Hi5 at Coulter Gallery, Stanford, CA
2016
Thing One Thing at Two One Grand Gallery, Portland, OR
Palette at Ampersand International Arts, San Francisco, CA
Meta Views at Phoenix Institute of Contemporary Art, Phoenix, AZ
2015
The Battery, San Francisco, CA
10 Year Anniversary Benefit Auction at LA>< ART, Los Angeles, CA
Tomorrow at Hashimoto Contemporary, San Francisco, CA
Mesa Group Show at Land and Sea, Oakland, CA
Mesa in LA at Age of Art Multiples, Los Angeles, CA
2014
Headlands Center for the Arts Benefit Art Auction (Anzfer Farms) at SOMARTS, San Francisco, CA
The Possibles (Anzfer Farms) at BAMPFA, Berkeley, CA
Kindling at Campfire Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2012
In The Fold (Anzfer Farms) at The Popular Workshop, San Francisco, CA
Holz (Anzfer Farms) at Park Life Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010
Wall to Wall at Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Portions (Anzfer Farms) at Caesar Chavez Art Gallery, SFSU, San Francisco, CA
Residencies
2019 - Real Time and Space, Oakland, CA
2018 - Cité International, Paris, France
2014 - Facebook A.I.R., Menlo Park, CA
Artist Talks
2019 – Real Time & Space, Oakland
2019 – Stanford University
2018 – Stanford University
2017 - Art Academy at Oakland High School
2015 - University of California, Berkeley
2011 - (Anzfer Farms) City College of San Francisco
2010 - (Anzfer Farms) San Francisco State University
2006 - Universidad Pedagógica - Tegucigalpa, Honduras
2005 - Columbia University - NY
Education
2018 - Stanford University, MFA Art Practice
2003 - The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, BFA
Photo: Haoguang Cai