Wherever There Is Water
artist-in-residence
George Ferrandi

George Ferrandi is an installation and performance artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from Baltimore, Ferrandi studied sculpture at Virginia Commonwealth University, Ohio State University, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She was the founding member of the touring performance project Cloud Seeding: Circus of the Performative Object and the Vice President of Operations of the City Reliquary Museum. Her work has been performed and/or exhibited around the United States at Columbia University, the Kitchen (New York), Cinders Gallery (Brooklyn), Good/Bad Artists Collective (Brooklyn), the Museo Italo-Americano (San Francisco), the Wexner Center (Columbus), Kendall Gallery (Grand Rapids), MacKinney Contemporary (Dallas), and the Bower Gallery (San Antonio). Ferrandi was a 2001 Franklin Furnace Fundwinner for Performance Art.

The inspiration for Wherever There is Water comes partly from George's day job at Saints Alive, a small company in Brooklyn dedicated to restoring religious sculpture, about which she writes:

It is strange and wonderful work — painting Jesus' toenails, reattaching angels' ears, repairing broken heavens — the metaphorical accomplishments alone are rewarding. Additionally, it allows me a connection to my family's history as church restoration contractors in Baltimore, as well as to the unnamed artists who originally made the glorious objects in front of me. But until very recently, the work I do in the saint repair industry has, with very few exceptions, been completely separate from that of my own studio practice; one is my job and the other is my work. The two enterprises ran parallel, in the same physical space, with little or no overlap. But lately, I find myself turning what appears to be a significant corner. The processes and materials involved in the statue work have been playing an increasingly important part in the evolution of my own ideas, and a new potential trajectory has been emerging, which is incredibly exciting. [Wherever There Is Water] offers the opportunity to incorporate not only the materials and processes of these objects into secular sculpture, but also to incorporate the forms and traditions of these festivals into an art event.

For more information, please visit George Ferrandi's Wherever There Is Water blog.

Image: George Ferrandi, Ammunition: Stack (detail), painted plaster, 2008

Wherever There Is Water is supported by an Artists & Communities grant. Artists & Communities, a program of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, is made possible by major funding from the Heintz Endowments, the William Penn Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.