About
Erin Graduated with a BFA from The Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has taught Fiber Arts, Painting and Drawing at the college level and worked in the textile design industry. She currently lives in Kansas with her husband and her three children. She is inspired by traveling and her time spent living on a sailboat, and draws upon that inspiration for her work int the Land ands Sea collection.
Her work was inspired by her technical study of textile design, working two dimensionally on a flat surface. In graduate school she transferred those processes to her paintings. Her paintings very much have a strong sense of pattern and design, yet bring in another more personal element through her use of language and the written word.
Artist Statement:
In our daily life the act of processing our emotions and memories is something that we all do in very different ways. The way in which we organize and compartmentalize our feelings is a part of who we are as individuals. The architecture of our minds and bodies is the container for all that we express and encounter. What systems filter our thoughts, feelings and emotional information? Where do we store the memories or feelings that we have suppressed? Are they layered somewhere within us? These emotions have not completely disappeared and are continually re-surfacing.
What effect does a disease like Alzheimer’s, or any memory loss, have on us and those around us? The loss of ability to bring something back to mind, or summon up things from our reservoir of emotions and memories is detrimental and debilitating.
It is the search for the interior that perpetuates my work. I cover and then reveal what is layered underneath, where unreadable text and /or indecipherable images are embedded. This multiple layering process relates to both time and history, pertaining to memories or secrets, the idea of something sacred or precious, becoming vulnerable by threat of exposure, or the sadness of being lost forever. Through the physical addition and subtraction of various materials I create surfaces and textures to then remove. Working in layers of wax and acrylic, layering imagery, textures, and colors, the process of painting itself is both the subject and the technique in which I create. The physical working of the surface is essential for the viewer to gain access and start the journey through the layered stories.
Using these layers as a way of processing and unearthing ideas, thoughts, feelings and memories reveals both physical and emotional patterns. Patterns can be both seen on the surface and felt deep within. Through the layering on and scraping off process in my work I am able to remember, pay respect to, and retell the stories of those I have lost in an effort to have them live on once again.
My work serves as a reminder that we are all connected, and no matter how much we try to forget, or are unable to remember, everything is still there, layered out of sight.