source: workshopresidence

Jim Isermann is a practicing artist, based in Palm Springs and Guerneville, California. Since receiving his MFA from the California Institute of Arts in 1980, Isermann’s artistic output has chronicled the conflation of post-war industrial design and fine art through popular culture. He divides his practice between labor-intensive studio work for gallery and museum exhibitions, and the digital design and oversight of commissioned projects that utilize industrial manufacturing processes. Recent solo exhibitions include: Praz-Delavallade, in Paris in 2010, Corvi-Mora, in London in 2011 and Mary Boone Gallery in New York in 2011 & 2012. His recent commissioned projects include works for the UCLA Hammer Museum, Yale University Art Museum, and an installation for the new Cowboys Stadium in Dallas. At Workshop Residence, Isermann develops a geometric concrete building block and a collection of quilted utility blankets.
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source: artucredu

Jim Isermann is a practicing artist, based in Palm Springs, California. Since receiving a MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1980 his artistic output has chronicled the conflation of post-war industrial design and fine art through popular culture. From functional installations to discrete objects Isermann has maintained an unflagging belief in the beauty of utilitarian design. He has explored traditional handicraft techniques and their polar relationships to fine art and craftsmanship to produce work that is unashamedly beautiful, a beauty integral to the limitations and specific characteristics of fabrication. In 1998, following a 15-year survey exhibition organized by David Pagel for UW Milwaukee’s institute of visual art, Isermann began to use a computer to digitally design manufactured elements. Realized installations and commissions have employed mass-produced thermal die-cut vinyl decals and projects incorporating multiple vacuum-formed styrene panels and roto-molded polyethylene modules. The work has matured from didactic representations of the failure of modernism to the physical embodiment of pure design that is often in formal discourse with its site-specific architectural setting addressing pragmatic issues of function and materials.

Currently Isermann divides his practice between labor-intensive studio work for gallery and museum exhibitions, and the digital design and oversight of commissioned projects that utilize commercial manufacturing processes. Most recently Isermann has mounted solo exhibitions at Mary Boone Gallery, New York in 2012, Corvi-Mora, London in 2013 and Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles in 2014. Commissioned projects were completed in 2010 for Cowboys Stadium, Arlington, Texas and in 2012 for the Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio. “I-block”, a color integrated concrete block system and “Utility (Happy) blanket”, a custom screen-printed moving/pet blanket, two open edition products, were created for The Workshop Residence, San Francisco, CA in 2012.