Elise Ferguson: F.L.W. Marin

Main Projects is proud to present Elise Ferguson: F.L.W. Marin, an exhibition of 18
unique monoprints that translate the artist’s longstanding interest in pattern, geometry,
and architectural space into a new relief-based process. Created with her signature
pigmented plaster on 300lb watercolor paper, the series marks the first time Ferguson
has incorporated debossing into her work, using pressure itself as a way to draw,
structure, and activate the surface.

The series takes its title from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Marin Civic Center in San Rafael,
California. Designed as a flowing, highly patterned environment, the building is defined
by long horizontal forms, repeating arches, circular motifs, and a bold color palette that
create a sense of rhythm and movement across its structure. Ferguson’s F.L.W. Marin
similarly uses geometric repetition, color relationships, and recurring forms to suggest
movement through space. Her compositions guide the viewer’s eye in a way that feels
architectural rather than purely pictorial, reflecting on how abstraction can shape
perception and direct experience.

Ferguson is known for works that land at the intersection of painting, sculpture, and
printmaking. Her labor-intensive process often begins with pigmented plaster, which she
builds into surfaces that appear precise at first glance but gradually reveal irregularity,
touch, and subtle shifts in texture. Balancing mechanical clarity with the liveliness of the
handmade, Ferguson allows misalignment, variation, and material resistance to become
essential parts of the final image.

In F.L.W. Marin, Ferguson extends this material language onto thick watercolor paper.
Each monoprint receives screen-printed color and debossed impressions, allowing the
work to hold pigment, pressure, and touch. Using a magnesium die, Ferguson created
recessed grooves and channels that bring a subtle physical structure to the surface.
The debossed areas function as a kind of drawing through pressure rather than
pigment, creating depth and relief within an otherwise flat plane.

This use of debossing gives Ferguson a new way to explore a boundary that has long
been central to her practice: the space between drawing, sculpture, printmaking, and
architecture. The resulting works are built from repeated geometric forms, yet each
monoprint carries its own distinct color relationships, surface qualities, and slight
variations. As in Ferguson’s paintings, the tension between precision and imperfection
animates the work, giving the series a quiet sense of movement and material presence.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, Ferguson currently lives and works in Queens, New York.
She has exhibited extensively in the United States and Europe, including solo
exhibitions with Halsey McKay Gallery, Romer Young, ODD ARK-LA, White Columns,
57W57 Arts, and SHRINE. Her work has been featured in The New York Times,

Artforum, Modern Painters, The Wall Street Journal, and New York Magazine, and is
included in the collections of the Tweed Museum, JP Morgan Chase, Truist Bank,
Progressive Art Collection, Microsoft, Google, the RISD Museum, and SUNY Albany
Museum.

As part of Main Projects’ ongoing commitment to editions and works on paper, Elise
Ferguson: F.L.W. Marin highlights the monoprint as a site for experimentation, material
transformation, and architectural thinking. The exhibition offers a focused look at how
Ferguson’s visual language expands through pressure, relief, and variation, creating
works that are at once graphic, tactile, and spatial.