Eric Birkin
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Antelope Island
2020
oil on panel
25 x 18
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Hellbreeze
2019
oil on panel
42 x 47
Statement
It must attempt to control but fail to do so.
It must yearn for power but remain apathetic.
It must walk dark psychic hallways but be rooted in realism.
It must breathe toward an open sky but borrow into concrete.
It must speak of doomsday prophecy but feel love and joy.
It must bask long in wonder but know that it is fleeting.
It must crave complexity but present as minimal.
It must cherish architecture but fear its potential.
It must crave the desert but be without it.
It must offer keys but never locks.
Knowing I will never catch it fills the chase with excitement, and so I return again and again. I look for it in cracks and information gaps, I seek connection to it in the oneness I feel in everything around me. But it never stops running, and so I chase.
I grew up primarily in Utah in an extremely religious household. An intensely curious and mystical child, I was taught to associate feelings of connection with the world around me with a literal interpretation of god, though that never felt quite right to me. This, along with questions about my sexuality and gender identity led to my questioning and then rejecting the Mormon church as a teenager. With that came anger and heartache. Many of my interpersonal relationships were damaged beyond repair and I was ostracized by both friends and family, now a stranger in the religious community that had been all I had ever known.
Yet I am still a deeply spiritual person, and though it took me nearly a decade to come to terms with this, it has always been intimately integral to my artistic practice. My insatiable need to paint stems from my own subjective experiences that elude concrete conceptualization—I must explore through painting what cannot be structured on verbal language.
LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting (MFA) Students