Erin Anderson’s paintings of figures on copper plates have a spiritual, almost supernatural, quality about them, but they are by no means idealized portraits. Preferring to capture the real essence of the nude men and women that she paints, her subjects become icons we can more easily relate to, linked together by their glimmering backgrounds. Anderson’s art, previously featured here on our blog, employs a dichotomy between the oils and the etched patterns in the cooper, where these separate elements in the individual pieces creates a “system” or flow that unifies the works as a whole.
When Anderson sent us word of her upcoming show, “The Human System”, she included the following quote by Martin Luther King that relates to their universal connection: “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.” Focusing on themes of connectivity and continuous energy, as well as gender and racial identity, the dynamism of her art is a reflection of the artist’s belief that we are all much closer than we realize.
“Picking up energy in others or your surroundings are essential functions of intuition,” she has said. “The more we can intuitively know about others, the better we can understand how to interact with them and empathize with their experience. Also, the more we can understand the effects our decisions and surroundings have on our own physical state, the more we can make decisions that promote the state of being we hope to achieve.” Erin Anderson’s “The Human System” will open April 7th, 2016 at Dacia Gallery in New York.
The oil paintings of 