“Art serves as an arena for connection, resonance and reverberation and becomes the story of my subconscious as told by my hands.” ー Eric Serritella.
The hyper-realistic textures of Serritella's work, such as charred logs, weathered wood and birch, which has been likened to an angel of the forest, are all formed by hand carving and twisting. His practice is guided by the development of Asian tea culture and its influence on ceramics, and incorporates the philosophy of ‘wabi-sabi’, a concept popularised by Sen no Rikyu in the late 1500s.
His sculptural pieces explores how nature maintains its splendors with tenacity and triumphs of existence, despite human disregard, juxtaposing the properties of the ceramic material with the fragility and durability of the natural environment.
In Serritella's artworks, ‘anthropomorphism’ is also a crucial element. Metaphors are embedded in each of his organically textured sculptures, and the anthropomorphic elements expresses the definitive inseparability of humanity from its interactions and embedded relationships with the natural environment. The intention is to raise the viewer's awareness of the environment and to influence their behaviour through his work.
Serritella's work has been featured in more than 130 exhibitions internationally and are represented in many museum collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art. We hope you will experience the artist's view of nature and philosophy through the surrealistic forms of his hand-built sculptures.
Eric Serritella
Born 1963 in Ellenville, New York, USA. Currently lives and works in Chepel Hill, North Carolina. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Ithaca College in 1985. Collections include: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, USA; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, USA. Awards include the First Place in Ceramics at the Downtown Syracuse Arts & Crafts Festival in 2003, Grand Prize at the Regional 2007 State of the Art Gallery in 2007, Ceramics Award of Excellence at the Smithsonian Crafts Show in 2014, Joyce W. Pope Grand Prize at the North Carolina Artists Exhibition, Contemporary Art Museum in 2019.