Eric Blum creates abstract compositions through a layered, intuitive process of adding and subtracting thinly inked sheets of silk to panel. Between each layer Blum seals the silk with beeswax. As he works, the compositions, initially based on a loose drawing, change and darken. Working on multiple paintings at once, Blum’s practice relies on process as he covers and uncovers, overlaps, cuts, and turns the panel in different orientations. The resulting moody, often monochromatic abstractions are Blum’s way of capturing the unknown. In the artist’s own words. “I grope around for something unfamiliar to my own eye, as if made by the hand of a stranger, with equal parts awkwardness, serenity, subversion and evocative inscrutability.”
