Eric Reinemann
North Adams, MA
Eric Reinemann is a contemporary painter concerned with the expression of time, memory, and landscape.
MessageEric Reinemann is a contemporary painter concerned with the expression of time, memory, and landscape. His layered abstractions rely on the structure of the visual world, which he takes apart, interprets, and rebuilds to create unique representations of time and place.
Born in Albany, NY. in 1978, Reinemann found his way into art through landscape photography. He studied painting at SUNY Plattsburgh and went on to receive his MFA from the University of Oregon in 2003. Since then he has actively shown at universities and galleries across the country, most recently UMASS Amherst, Tennessee Technical University, and UNC Asheville.
Reinemann was a finalist for the Gottlieb Foundation Prize and a recipient of the North Adams Project Award. His next show, Lifeworld, will open this September at the Cecelia Coker Bell Gallery of Coker University in SC.
Statement
I am a process oriented artist exploring themes of memory and connection, domesticity and wilderness. These have been the predominant subjects of my work, the two poles of my life, and I exist between them. My works convey sometimes contradictory states- fatherhood and expedition, intense human connection and extreme solitude, the temporal and the timeless. Intrigued by the complexities of the mind and inspired by the richness of the visual world, I approach pictorial space as a fragmented and multilayered experience.
My process of painting expresses the sensation of change encountered in everyday living. I make abstractions which rely on the structure of the visual world. From careful observation I dissect a collection of unique shapes, patterns, and lines. These elements are then interpreted, coded with color, and layered upon the surface.
Each body of work is born from a specific moment and is approached in a way fitting to that experience. I utilize combinations of photography, drawing, and digital media as a means to navigate through a series. Painting on both paper and panel, I prefer the quick drying and transparent nature of water based paint. This helps to reveal the decisions which went into each painting, leading to a ghostly and shifting space.
Each decision within a painting is treated as an independent layer of information, allowing the painting to remain in flux until the abstraction is discovered. While the painting's structural information is interpreted from the observed world, how it is layered together is a matter of expression at the moment of creation. The end result becomes an internalized landscape that is both part of the past and the present.
For 2023 I am exploring works which are composed of multiple elements. Using prepared sheets of 22x30 heavyweight watercolor paper, I am allowing myself more freedom for how these paintings find conclusion. My recent work, “Big Cypress” is composed of twelve paintings that work as a group to form one piece, with some paintings being finished in ten layers and some taking fifty. This allows the group to have a greater dynamic range, delivering a visual and psychological depth to the experience they were born from.
I enjoy the problems inherent to the language of painting. How does one express a worldly experience in two dimensions? Time, movement, and change inevitably needs to be involved. My process has evolved to become one that expresses these multiple layers of experience.