The Curator's Eye

Shades of Grey
Eric Elliott, Painter

selected by Greg Bell, cutator, Vulcan, Inc.

Studio Corner, 2008, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

Eric Elliott (left) paints interiors, rich in volume and dense with light. (His work is on view through May 25 in the Tacoma Art Museum’s Northwest Biennial.) He seeks the details while diffusing them in an overall neutral gray.  Elliott concurrently models and flattens the objects, constructing volume through painted tint and tone.

He refers to the “interconnectedness” of his subject matter, uniting elements by bringing them to the surface of the canvas. Although Elliott does not intend the brush marks to be decorative, he enjoys how the smaller marks form the object.  The paint can be in rhythmic movement or in stasis, depending upon Elliott’s intention for the painting. Within the white and gray veils, the objects fuse to the ground, but the space around them grows infinitely.

Elliott has said about his work, “Painting, for me, is pretty much an addiction.  I am interested in the illusions and contradictions of perception, and how they relate to the illusions and contradictions of painting.  I am exploring the gray area between objects and the spaces that surround them, and the gray area that is the difference between knowing (or not knowing) and seeing.”

And Jonathan Swift replies, “Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.” — Greg Bell