EUGENE'S MONSTERS
A picture book dummy by Eric E. Bell
VISIT E. BELL'S BLOG
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
We all have reasons for making art and though some of my reasons involve bright colors and shiny things, many are about documentation, and more still are about coming to understand the circumstance created by picture making.
Before cameras, the human experience was recorded in paint, and some of that need to document what we see and live is permanently imprinted on the DNA of painters. When the light is just so, or when I glimpse a unique image, I think to myself, "I should paint that."
Today, one can make pictures and snap, tweet, post, tag, text, send, and share them. Documentation is covered. Sort of.
There has to be more for the image to be an event or a story. There is point of view. There is paint. A painting offers a unique perspective, and the world filtered through a painter's eyes is a world seen new.
Experiences color life, and my mental pictures aren't faded black and white snapshots or digital photos of vacations with 34 "likes" on Facebook. They are both more and less than that. They're too big for my own head, and so small I can't find them. They're fragments - broken pieces of the world - the combination of which are powerful pictures of life and the things that have filled it.
So what does that all mean concerning me, my work, and how it all fits together? I don’t know. I might not even care, but I know I need to save the things I've lived. This world is remarkable, filled with beauty and horror, and I must take note; of experiences, of ideas, and of things that I can't let go of. I am the visual DJ. I take the parts, I remix them, and I lay down a new track – beautifully the same, and surprisingly different, from the original.
Before cameras, the human experience was recorded in paint, and some of that need to document what we see and live is permanently imprinted on the DNA of painters. When the light is just so, or when I glimpse a unique image, I think to myself, "I should paint that."
Today, one can make pictures and snap, tweet, post, tag, text, send, and share them. Documentation is covered. Sort of.
There has to be more for the image to be an event or a story. There is point of view. There is paint. A painting offers a unique perspective, and the world filtered through a painter's eyes is a world seen new.
Experiences color life, and my mental pictures aren't faded black and white snapshots or digital photos of vacations with 34 "likes" on Facebook. They are both more and less than that. They're too big for my own head, and so small I can't find them. They're fragments - broken pieces of the world - the combination of which are powerful pictures of life and the things that have filled it.
So what does that all mean concerning me, my work, and how it all fits together? I don’t know. I might not even care, but I know I need to save the things I've lived. This world is remarkable, filled with beauty and horror, and I must take note; of experiences, of ideas, and of things that I can't let go of. I am the visual DJ. I take the parts, I remix them, and I lay down a new track – beautifully the same, and surprisingly different, from the original.
ABOUT LITTLE BOXES
At some point I started paying a lot of attention to how my visual memory is connected to my life experiences, and in 2001 I started noticing how certain patterns would remind me of people. Let's take toile for example. At that time, I didn't know what toile was. I'd never heard that word before. My friend Sarah, who I was working with at the time, determined to educate me on this, drug me into Pottery Barn and showed me a very nice chair upholstered in a toile patterned fabric. And every since, toile has made me think of Sarah. Just like Burberry plaid makes me think of Carrie, and the Simpsons' kitchen curtains make me think of Joe.
So I started a list. I think of that list (which I carry around in a little Moleskin journal) as a sort of inventory. It's an inventory of a collection. We all collect things - baseball cards, egg cups, Hummel figures, vintage porn, action figures, classic cars, shoes, Elvis paraphernalia, cookbooks. It's different for everyone I suppose, but in my case, my list was documenting the people I have collected in my life. The ones that I have picked up along the way. The ones I wish were near me. The ones I want to hang onto. My people.
And this list was made for a reason. It was the starting point for a series of paintings that shows those visual connections that I continue to make between the things I see and the people I know. It started with just patterns, but that wasn't enough. Some patterns remind me of more than one person, and there aren't really patterns for everyone I wanted to document. So I expanded the possible subject matter to everything visual. I also decided to include collage and to use the 4" square format for each of the paintings. Tiny. Intimate. As of right now, there are about 400 paintings planned for this series.
I know it's futile to hang onto things. Nothing lasts. It all goes by. But I also know that the reason we are blessed with memory is so that we can take this life that goes by far too fast and revisit the moments that we didn't get enough time with the first time.
So I started a list. I think of that list (which I carry around in a little Moleskin journal) as a sort of inventory. It's an inventory of a collection. We all collect things - baseball cards, egg cups, Hummel figures, vintage porn, action figures, classic cars, shoes, Elvis paraphernalia, cookbooks. It's different for everyone I suppose, but in my case, my list was documenting the people I have collected in my life. The ones that I have picked up along the way. The ones I wish were near me. The ones I want to hang onto. My people.
And this list was made for a reason. It was the starting point for a series of paintings that shows those visual connections that I continue to make between the things I see and the people I know. It started with just patterns, but that wasn't enough. Some patterns remind me of more than one person, and there aren't really patterns for everyone I wanted to document. So I expanded the possible subject matter to everything visual. I also decided to include collage and to use the 4" square format for each of the paintings. Tiny. Intimate. As of right now, there are about 400 paintings planned for this series.
I know it's futile to hang onto things. Nothing lasts. It all goes by. But I also know that the reason we are blessed with memory is so that we can take this life that goes by far too fast and revisit the moments that we didn't get enough time with the first time.
