ERIC BLUM: New Paintings

Eric Blum

New Paintings

On the cover (cropped) : Untitled No. 762, 2016 ink, silk and beeswax on panel 30 x 24 in.

Untitled No. 758, 2016 ink, silk, and beeswax on panel 37 x 31 in.

ERIC BLUM New Paintings June 23 to July 30, 2016

Untitled No. 762, 2016 ink, silk and beeswax on panel 30 x 24 in.

Untitled No. 764, 2016 ink, silk and beeswax on panel 52 x 50 in.

Untitled No. 753, 2016 ink, silk, and beeswax on panel 71 x 53 in.

Untitled No. 759, 2016 ink, silk, and beeswax on panel 69 x 84 in.

Untitled No. 758, 2016 ink, silk, and beeswax on panel 37 x 31 in.

Kathryn Markel Fine Arts is pleased to present New Paintings, Eric Blum’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

Eric Blum’s layered arrangements of ink-washed, wax-infused silk are rooted in modern painting techniques yet activated by the experimental manipulation of his media. The ambiguity of Blum’s references and the elusiveness of his narrative is beguiling. In his world, a scene viewed peripherally or as a background is something other than itself; potentially more desirable, poetic or preposterous. Its parts don’t always go together and it wavers at the edge of recognition.

Blum bypasses conscious decisions by blindly selecting his initial guidelines from random sources. The designated forms of the first layers are put through a process of rotating and flipping, covering and uncovering, overlapping, excising and splicing … ultimately reordering it’s original elements into a kind of visual anagram, no longer resembling its own preconception. He is drawn to unexpected juxtapositions and awkward harmonies with menacing undercurrents that don’t make a nuisance of themselves.

Eric Blum has received grants from the New York Foundation of the Arts and the PollockKrasner Foundation. He has exhibited with galleries around the world and has been featured in shows at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the Knoxville Art Museum, and The Contemporary Art Center of Cincinnati, among other institutions.

Blum studied at UCLA and Central St. Martins, and currently lives and works in New York City.

EDUCATION 1976-78 University of California, Los Angeles 1984-85 Central Saint Martin’s College of Art & Design, London

AWARDS/GRANTS 2008 New York Foundation for the Arts 2001 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation 1998 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2013 Foreign Parts, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY 2013 K. Imperial Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA 2010 Gallery Satori, New York, NY 2009 David Weinberg Gallery, Chicago, IL Boltax Gallery, Shelter Island, NY 2008 Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA 2007 Lemmons Contemporary, New York, NY 2005 Lemmons Contemporary, New York, NY Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA Boltax Gallery, Shelter Island, NY

GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2015 Rule Gallery, Marfa, TX 2014 Transpose, Art Merge Lab, Los Angeles, CA 2011 Illusion of Life, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY 2009 William Siegal Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 2008 Garson Baker Fine Art, New York, NY 2007 The Rooms, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada Lemmons Contemporary, New York, NY

2006 Rule Gallery, Denver, CO 2005 Blue, Baxter, Chang, Patri, San Francisco, CA

Paintings That Paint Themselves, Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University

Lemmons Contemporary, New York, NY

Julie Baker Fine Art, Grass Valley, CA

Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2009 Eric Ernst, Perspectives, The Southampton Press, July 28, 2009

The East Hampton Star, May 19, 2009 2007 New York Magazine, December 3, 2007 2005 D. Dominick Lombardi, Unbound: Selected Artists, The New York Times, January 2, 2005 2002 William Zimmer, The New York Times, November 10, 2002 Jerry Cullum, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, February 1, 2002 2001 Joanne Mattera, The Art of Encaustic Painting, Watson-Guptill ` Publications

Marion Dillon, Identities:Contemporary Portraiture, exhibition catalogue, New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, March 2001

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