Artist Statement

The making of art is a method of knowing. I make art to understand God, humanity, scripture, our time and culture, myself, transience, eternity, and the relationship between perception and belief among other things.
As a printmaker, I produce edition varia—suites of prints that are related in their compositional structure (edition) yet unique in their layering and color (varia). They are the same but different. Most printmakers do not focus on variation to the extent that I do. My reason for doing so is not to be unusual; rather, it is that the production of variations becomes for me an arena of contemplation and a portal to understanding. Making variations forces me to think through the subject of a work as though from many viewpoints. A genuine dialogue about the subject occurs between myself and the artworks as I alternate making and viewing them. I make the works with prefigured beliefs and intentions. Then I view the works, and they speak to me. They do not simply restate what I dictate, like voice mail. Just as making the works teaches me what I could not learn without the making, the works manifest what I could not see without them.
So, in the same way that making variations helps me to understand what is beyond and greater than my work, I propose (by the works’ existence and installation together) that juxtaposing variations can deepen any viewer’s engagement with the work’s content—making one’s experience more complex and rewarding. Variation becomes a third dimension for my otherwise two-dimensional work. But it is a dimension of a different kind than that of sculpture: it is a dimension of the mind. Such variation has a peculiar ability to penetrate and provoke human thinking because we are creatures of comparison.
In making edition varia, I emulate what I see demonstrated in life. From the beginning, God made us to see light and darkness and distinguish between the two; likewise I make relief prints that clarify space in fundamentally binary contrast. The earth is an ancient, perceptibly stable place, yet its appearance changes with night and day, stormy weather and fair, seasons, and so on. God made us in his image, yet varied: male and female. These things illustrate that we come to understand mysteries through our experience of dualities, unions, and variations. And this is proof of the practice’s power: I came to understand these things by so doing, so viewing, and so comparing.

Biography

Eric currently lives in Iowa and received his MFA from Iowa State University. In addition to his own art, he has taught multiple classes and workshops as well as attained many technical acheivements, including designing and fabricating a hydraulic press for various printmaking processes, creating a registration system for large-scale printmaking, and making general improvements to the ISU printmaking studios.

Eric's has had solo exhibitions across the mid-west and has been represented in group exhibitions nationwide, including 20/20 Vision at Firehouse Gallery-Louisville, PA, 2009; and Prolific Impressions, Printmaking Now- climate/gallery LLC, Long Island City, NY.