Joshua Ferry is a painter based in South Portland, Maine. He earned his BFA from Maine College of Art in 1994 and his MFA from Rutgers University in 1999. During graduate school he worked as a studio assistant for Donald Sultan in New York. Following 15 years in New York, Ferry and his wife, Karen, returned to Maine in 2012, seeking a more grounded and balanced way of life.
Ferry’s paintings consist of heavily worked surfaces that are sanded and scraped to arrive at simple, pared-down images. This process yields works that are constructed of many layers of paint. His work draws upon the landscapes of the Maine coast, childhood memories of his father’s Episcopal church, and an ongoing exploration of color and form. In every painting, the painting process ultimately takes over and becomes the focus of the work.
His work has been exhibited at the Portland Museum of Art, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, the University of Maine Museum of Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA. Across Maine, he has also shown at Aucocisco Gallery and June Fitzpatrick Gallery in Portland, Thos. Moser Gallery in Freeport, Freeman Gallery in Cape Neddick, Perimeter Gallery in Belfast, Parsonage Gallery in Searsport, and Ocean House Gallery in Cape Elizabeth. Beyond Maine, his work has been exhibited at Colman Burke Gallery in New York, through an invitation from Katherine Bradford, and internationally at KPK Gallery in Switzerland.