Eleanor Harwood Gallery is pleased to announce Joe Ferriso’s solo exhibition with the gallery.

Lost & Found is where things wash ashore. Some are precious, some purposely discarded, all full of backstory. I see everything as a potential medium for expression, and the analogy of searching and finding feels like an apt parallel for my art-making. Wood and paint are materials people surround themselves with. We run to them for comfort and run from them for change. The leftovers of construction are plentiful. Making speculative architectural patterns with them feels celebratory to me.

Driftwood, too, is inherently a castaway. Its original form is often streamlined, reduced, made stronger and smoother. I see the found elements of driftwood and construction waste as related. These fragments of growth and labor are shaped in part by chance, place, and circumstance. In responding to their shape, color, and texture, I seek the placement that reorients the material.

The artworks assembled here grew out of family outings to the beach, solo walks past construction sites, and conversations with neighbors and friends about things they need to get rid of. The backstory matters deeply to me. Where do things come from, and why do we hold onto them? Each time I make a piece of artwork, it becomes a kind of time capsule, bearing witness to events in my life, in our community, and in the world. I like to think that my artwork finds me, and hopefully finds its way to others as well.