Eric is a British artist & musician who has shown his work in galleries in Manchester, Liverpool, London, Chicago, Austin and more. His work is heavily influenced by 18th and 19th century British folk painting. In 1983 he joined the collaborative art/music group, the Mekons, and continues to record and tour with the band, and is a solo recording artist on Bloodshot Records. Eric has lived in the US (California) for a number of years. While here he has studied the history & culture of the US, putting much of that into his paintings.
Right now, we're showing his White Boots series. Here's something he wrote about it.
WHITE BOOTS
After a rather prolonged hiatus in my painting practice due to a number of practical reasons that aren’t worth going into. I recently picked up my brushes again in order to continue where I left off with the series of paintings I refer to as ‘White Boots’. For me, as always during the process of producing a painting, a dialogue develops between the work in progress and myself. (By dialogue I mean that I begin to react to shapes and nuances within the piece that I may not have imagined or expected at the outset.). Since going back to the series after the prolonged break I have begun to introduce a more obvious, though still ambiguous, narrative. The idea and intention however, remains the same as at the outset and as stated below.
ABOUT THE SERIES
I started the series several years ago with the idea of simply repeating the figures of the two characters, featured within the same landscape, with only slight alterations to the positioning and posture of each in relation to the other. Some of this ‘movement’ can be so slight that, at a passing glance, or with an only semi-engaged observation the viewer could quite easily conclude that each painting is a repeat of the previous. But, the point being missed would be that each painting is, by virtue of the production process, unique, as each and every brush stroke can never to be exactly repeated. By making each painting superficially similar I am attempting to emphasize this point and asking the viewer to become more engaged and to look longer in order to see the subtle differences. I see it, in a way, as a reflection of life in that every fraction of a second of ones existence can never be repeated (no groundhog days as it were) and that each moment is special and unique.
Eric Bellis (aka Rico Bell) 2022
