Henry Ferreira

Website | Resume

Biography

Henry Ferreira's work is built on a deep respect for craft. Acquired skills absorbed through years of practice are used as methods of exploration to execute content driven pieces. His work has always begun from observation and grown through process.  His later work is more direct, process driven and less pre visualized. In his newer work he plays with printmaking to build through matrix and repeat. Coming to the work with an idea it takes shape in the making. The medium, and materials, help shape the piece.  He means to balance thinking and making. He strives to intertwine content and form in an effort to grow his work.

He makes his work in the studio he built. It’s located in a two hundred year old farmhouse in Fairhaven, Massachusetts where he lives with his family. He received his MFA from RISD in 1980. He was in the inaugural class at Bristol Community College in Fall River, Massachusetts and earned his BFA in 1972 from Southeastern Massachusetts University now the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He has been teaching at RISD since 1981 during that time he has taught printmaking in Pont Avon, France, San Miguel and Cuernavaca, Mexico and in Rome, Italy. He presently head’s the Printmaking Department at the Rhode Island School of Design and serves as President of RISD’s Faculty Association/Union. 

Striking a balance between teaching, family, and studio can be frustrating if not impossible, but I can’t think of much I‘d change. The fact is it all adds up to who I am, and ultimately, the foundation of my work. One’s life can be said to be the foundation for his or her work, but sometimes the influence is more direct. About five years ago I spent a lot of time rebuilding my studio. I removed, repaired, and replaced the floor, rebuilt the walls, put up new lights, ran new wiring, and installed the counter and sink. Soon after the studio was finished, I began to think about building with dimensional wood framing – how it relates to matrixes, layering, stacking – much like the printmaking process.  I began to explore the motif of houses. Sometimes the house is used as a metaphor, and a basic idea can be married to process and image. When the process of making takes precedent, the idea is more fluid and open-ended. I approach the work with an idea, and it literally takes shape on the paper through the playing and making, the content and form.

Exhibits

Dedee Shattuck Gallery | March 30 - May 1, 2016 | Works on Paper

Dedee Shattuck Gallery | November 11 - December 20, 2018 | Small Works, 2015