Born in Seattle in 1952, Erik ReeL attended Whitman College majoring in mathematics and philosophy, the University of California, at Berkeley, and the University of Washington majoring in art history and studio art, graduating summa cum laude in 1975. ReeL studied art history with Rainer Crone, painting with Jacob Lawrence, Michael Spafford, Bob Jones, and Michael Dailey, color with Richard Dahn [a student of Albers], sumi-e with George Tsutakawa, and, independently, Chinese brush with Hsai Chen.
In the late 1970s Reel wrote on art for a number of publications including Vanguard, ArtExpress, High Performance magazines, Artweek, and/or Notes, wrote a weekly column for the Bellevue Journal-American, and was the arts editor for the Seattle Voice city magazine. ReeL sat on two Seattle Arts Commission Special Task Forces: Media and Educational Institutions in the Arts.
In his twenties, Reel was involved in performance art as well as writing and painting, performing in pieces at the Seattle Art Museum, Cornish School for the Allied Arts, and Washington Hall in Seattle, usually collaborating with musicians and dancers, while exhibiting paintings regularly with the original Jackson Street Gallery located upstairs at 123 Jackson Street. For five years ReeL taught art history, color theory, and life painting at the Seattle Central Community College until he left Seattle in 1984.
ReeL’s painting has alternated between phases of figurative and abstract imagery until 2009 when he took a position clearly critical of the hypermaterialism of contemporary society by stripping all references to the physical world from his work to produce his mature non-objective style.
In a presentation at the Morris Graves Museum of Art, Portland-based art critic, Jae Carlsson [Art Dish, ArtForum] pointed out ReeL’s visual and philosophical connections to earlier Seattle painters Morris Graves and Mark Tobey, while at the same time indicating that ReeL had pushed his work beyond Post-Modernist limitations. As well as these influences from earlier Seattle precedents there are influences from the Black Mountain Arts School via Jacob Lawrence and Bob Jones. An exhibition of Cy Twombly’s in New York in the late 1970s has also been cited by ReeL as an early influence during a talk in Santa Barbara in 2010.
ReeL’s work after 2003 features a technique consisting mainly of pastel and dry media used in conjunction with liquid acrylic paints in a way that ignores the distinction between drawing and painting. In a 2010 catalog of Reel’s work, art critic Nikki Arconi writes:
ReeL’s technique exhibits a high degree of transparency, layering, sfgraffito and graffitto, with a strong sense of hand, the hand-made, and an absence of any references to the material world. This work can be seen as a thorough-going critique of materialism, the machine or machine-made, and the triumph of feeling over the manufactured. For ReeL, marking is a defining characteristic of the human and the primordial act of signification and meaning for human consciousness.
In 2017, the following statement was published regarding understanding Reel’s work:
Like an archaeologist uncovering the remnants of written language ReeL creates meaning from, not just what is visible, but in what has been obscured. To understand ReeL’s work one must look at his attraction to such seemingly incongruent influences as erased whiteboards, blizzards, improvisational music, and abandoned industrial sites. His work celebrates the meaning in remnants, the hidden, the random and destroyed.
In 2019 ReeL relocated to Portland, Oregon, where he currently maintains his studio and lives with his wife, Rhonda P. Hill.
Erik ReeL: Publications
Books
Pterodactyl Cries: Art, Abstraction, Apocalypse, 2021
Empire of the Damned: An Artist's Life, coming in 2022
Writing About Erik ReeL
Catalogs and Monographs
Kinoshita, Alexis and Moen, Grace, Erik ReeL 20 20, FAFA, 2020
Erik ReeL: Full Circle. Exhibition catalog, Morris Graves Museum of Art, 2016
Carlsson, Jae. Tabula Rasa. Exhibition catalog, 2013.
Erik ReeL: From the Private Collection. Catalog. Centaur: 2013
Arconi, Nikki. Erik ReeL Painting Catalog: 1250 -1456. Centaur: 2011.
Erik ReeL: Painting: Catalog 1352 – 1401. Centaur: 2010.
Erik ReeL: Works on Paper. Centaur: 2009.
Erik ReeL: Paintings. Centaur: 2009.
Chaos. Exhibition catalog, 2009.
Quantum Dynamics of Painting. exhibition catalog, 2008.
Erik ReeL: paintings and drawings. 110 plates, Centaur: 2008.
Erik ReeL. Face to Face. New World: 2008.
17th Annual McNeese National Works on Paper. Exhibition catalog, 2004.
17th Parkside National Small Print Exhibition. Exhibition catalog. Wisconsin: 2004.
Interviews
Ruins of Runes, Erik ReeL text of Sean Riehl video, may 2014
Interview with Erik ReeL, june 2013 Society805.com
Interview with Erik ReeL, january 2013 KAQB
Video
Epiphany: Erik ReeL and Diane Silver, Eric Minh Swenson 2017
The Visual Language of Erik ReeL, Sean Riehl 2014.
Sources
Nathan Vonk, Exciting Work at Museum of Contemporary Art, feb 2015
Ruins of Runes, Erik ReeL text of Sean Riehl video, may 2014,
Nelson Jesson, Semiotic Abstraction, nov 2013
Christian Reed, Oh, Those Pesky Tag Memes, feb 2013
Ben Chinay, Signs of a Lost Civilization, dec 2011
Nikki Arconi, Erik ReeL: Markings, catalog essay, nov 2011
Erik ReeL 2172, Tutustu kiinnostaviin ideoihin! Pansemic writing source website
Selected Press
Kit Boise-Cossart, Erik ReeL, GraySpace Santa Barbara, nov 2018
Leslie Dinaberg, Erik ReeL: Zero Point & Rhonda P. Hill: Blurred Boundaries: Fashion as an Art, sept 2018
Erik ReeL at the Butler Institute of American Art, july 2018
Leslie Westbrook, Welcome to Planet ReeL, oct 2017
Erik ReeL and Diane Silver, 13 july 2017
Nathan Vonk, Exciting Work at Museum of Contemporary Art, feb 2015
ReeL Grand Slam, nov 2014
Society805.com, VAM Improvisational Painting, 7 july 2014
Nash Rightmer & Erik ReeL’s Standing in Boots, may 2014
Nelson Jesson, Semiotic Abstraction, nov 2013
Tracy Hudak, A Painter With a View, april 2013
Christian Reed, Oh, Those Pesky Tag Memes, feb 2013
Nathan Vonk, How Soon is Now?, june 2012
Ted Mills, In the Abstract Bedroom, june 2012
Ben Chinay, Signs of a Lost Civilization, dec 2011
Nicole D’Amore. Faces are Archeteypes, aug 2008
Ashley Olive. Erik ReeL at FrameWorks, oct 2008
Joseph Woodard. Joie de Vivre, sept 2004
Charles Donelan. The Riviera American-style, sept 2003
Sarah McIver, ReeL Irrational Exuberance, may 2003
Anita Farina, ReeL’s Bagdad Hotel, august 2003
David Jensen, Arte Tropicana and the ReeL Thing, june 2003
Annette Sorel, ReeL Splash of Color, may 2002
Joseph Woodard, Pools and Lines, may 2002
Delores Tarzan, ReeL at Cornish Institute, Seattle Times, sept 1984
Regina Hackett, Gary Hill and Gary Reel at And/Or Art Center, Seattle P-I, 21 january 1981
Lisa Thomas, ReeL Splash of Color, june 1977
Related Articles
Jae Carlsson, Erik ReeL, Tabula Rasa catalog, april 2013
Raphael Rubinstein, Provisional Painting Part 2: To Rest Lightly on Earth, feb 2012
Nikki Arconi, Erik ReeL: Markings, catalog essay, nov 2011
Raphael Rubinstein, Provisional Painting, may 2009
Selected Writing by Erik ReeL
On Visual Art
Empire of the Damned: An Artist's Life, 2022
Pterodactyl Cries: Art, Abstraction, Apocalypse, 2021
Matisse in Long Beach, aug 2018
Mark Bradford at Hauser & Wirth, may 2018
Yumiko Glover: Pushing the Button 2058 Times, may 2018
Chagall: Fantasies on Stage at LACMA, 12 nov 2017
Jimmie Durham: Art at the Center of the World, 11 april 2017
Jean Dubuffet Drawings at the Hammer, 10 april 2017
Moholy-Nagy at LACMA, 31 march 2017
Henry Taylor at Blum & Poe, dec 2016
Agnes Martin, 21 jun 2016
Interview with Mara De Luca, 7 june 2016
Letter From the Front, Face to Face, catalog, aug 2008
On Performing Arts
Bakersfield Mist, 14 may 2018
Sgt. Pepper at 50; Mark Morris at Eternity, 14 may 2018
Shepard's True West at SPTC
Baby Tangle, 14 may 2018
American Buffalo, 20 april 2018
Macbeth in Ojai, 20 april 2018
Lear, 27 mar 2018
Wrongs of the Righteous, 12 feb 2018
This Random World, 12 feb 2018
Perlmutter’s Directing Hamlet, 12 nov 2017
Taking Sides, 13 nov 2017
Flying H Does Blackbird, 16 oct 2017
Dance: Anaїs by Mixed eMotion Theatrix, 25 sept 2017
Incognito, 22 sept 2017
Becky’s New Car, 6 sept 2017
Steel Magnolias at the Elite, 4 sept 2017
McPherson’s Birds, 1 july 2017
When We Were Young and Unafraid, 9 jun 2017
Milo’s Other Mozart, 5 jun 2017
Beached, 26 april 2017
To Woo is to Win, 25 april 2017
Agnes of God, 6 mar 2017
Devil’s Music that Feeds the Soul, 3 mar 2017
Driving Home: Rubicon Concludes Nibroc Trilogy, 7 feb 2017
Jason Furlani’s Family Trees, 6 dec 2016
Chapter Two at ETC, 5 dec 2016
Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, 17 oct 2016
Night Alive, 24 sept 2016
This Isn’t Kansas, Yet, Is It?, 23 july 2016
Open Meeting Closed, 15 july 2016
Oh, How Lovely Do Angels Fall, 15 jJune 2016
What Kind of Sticks?, 10 june 2016
The Pillowman, 19 may 2016
David Hare’s Skylight, 18 may 2016
Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles at SPTC, 23 april 2016
Uncanny Valley, 24 mar 2016
Taking Liberty, 7 mar 2016
That Other Place, 16 feb 2016
See Rock City, 2 feb 2016
FUBAR at Flying H, 25 jan 2016
My Fair Lady at Rubicon, 26 oct 2015
Acting Rules at Flying H and Elite: Small Engine Repair and Zero Hour, 19 oct 2015
Into the Jaws of History, 13 Sep 2015
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad ... Living Room, 5 Sep 2015
Twisted Trouble, 18 jul 2015
Other Desert Cities, 3 jun 2015
Roger That, 31 may 2015
Regional Art News
Joe Cardella 1945-2018, may 2018
Vonder Gray at WAV, 9 feb 2018
The Art Market 2017, 12 jan 2018
Bob Privett at the Ventura County Museum, 6 june 2017
Assembling Assemblage, 17 may 2017
Museum Mishandles Asian Pacific Exhibition, 27 jun 2016
A World Down the Street, 24 may 2016
Flying H Theatre Announces New Plays, 15 feb 2016
New Executive Director for the Museum of Ventura County, 18 april 2013
Pistol Productions: Firing Away, 1 oct 2012
Is the 805 Ready for a Regional Arts Council?, 9 feb 2012
Putting It All Together: Tracy Hudak, 3 feb 2012
Arts Candidates Sweep Ventura City Council Elections, 18 nov 2011
Irving Foundation Grants for the 805, 28 oct 2011
Ventura Wins Arts Destination Award, 25 jul 2011
Other Publications
In the late 1970s and early 1980s ReeL wrote on art and performance for a variety of publications including Vanguard, ArtExpress, High Performance art magazines, Artweek, and/or Notes, weekly reviews and a weekly column on the arts for the daily newspaper in east Seattle, the Bellevue Journal-American, was arts editor and writer for the Seattle Voice monthly city magazine, and collaborated with art critic Jae Carlsson [ArtDish, ArtForum, ArtsWatch] on a number of zines on language and critical theory in the pre-internet era.
Selected lectures, panels, and symposia
Neither Supernatural Nor Mechanical, Artists Talk/interview, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, 2021.
From Fluxus to Rebar, Artists Talk, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California, 2014.
Public lecture in conjunction with solo exhibition at Whatcom County Museum, Bellingham, Washington, 1986.
Panel on Art Criticism and Contemporary Painting, in conjunction with solo exhibition Whatcom County Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, Washington, 1986.
Symposium on Visual Art and Media: Politics and Critique. Seattle Media Library, 1985.
Critics Symposium on Painting, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, 1985.
From Titian to Clemente: Transformations in the Painterly Tradition in Italy. Public lecture, Cornish Institute of the Arts, Seattle, Washington, 1984.
The Rebirth of Painting. Public lecture, Seattle Art Museum, 1984.
Dialectics of Transavantguardism: Wolfgang Max Faust vs. Germano Celant, Public lecture, Seattle Public Library, 1984.
Graffito Graphics: the Berlin Wall, Urban Graffiti, and the New Painting. Public lecture, Seattle Pacific University, 1984.
Sources in My Work, public lecture, Cornish Institute for the Arts, Seattle, 1984.
Painting Today, Public lecture, Cornish Institute for the Arts, Seattle, 1984.
Painterly Painting, Again, Public lecture, Seattle Art Museum, 1984.
Late Painting: Picasso, Matisse, de Chirico, Chagall, et alia, Public lecture, Seattle Art Museum, 1983.
Late de Chirico and the Next Generation: Clemente, Palladino, Cucci, Public lecture, Seattle Central Community College, 1983.
Teaching Color Theory: Gerrittsen Schema, RGB, Hex, and the Preparation of Visual Artists and Designers for a Digital World, Public lecture, Lecture series, Seattle Public Library, 1983.
Teaching Color Theory: Gerrittsen Schema, RGB, Hex, and the Preparation of Visual Artists and Designers for a Digital World, Public lecture, Lecture serieis, Seattle Central Community College, 1983.
Color Theory: The Bauhaus Tradition Today: Itten, Klee, Albers, Dahn, ReeL, Public lecture, Seattle Central Community College, 1982.
Color Theory: Gerrittsen Schema, Visual Constancies, Color Effect, and Painting. Public lecture, Seattle Central C. College,k 1981.
An Objective Criterion for Temperature Contrast: Itten was Wrong, Seattle Central College Auditorium, 1981.
Fluxus Flumoxed, Public lecture commemorating the passing of George Maciunas, founder of Fluxus, Seattle Masonic Hall, 1980.
Color Theory Today: Preparing Visual Artists for the Computer Age, Why Teach Hexidecimal and RGB Representations. Seattle Public Library, 1980.
Color Theory Today: Why Classical Mixing Theories Do Not Work, Seattle Public Library, 1980.
Color Theory Today: Gerrittsen Schema, Transmission Curves, and Digital Representations, Seattle Central Community College Auditorium, 1980.
Color Theory: A Comprehensive Conceptual Scheme for Artists and Designers, Public lecture, Seattle Public Library, 1980.
The Role of Visual Constancies in the Teaching of Color Theory to Artists and Designers, Public Lecture, Seattle Central Community College, 1980.
Edwin Land and the Revolution in Perceptual Psychology in the 1950s and Its Impact on Color Theory: What Artists Need to Know, Public Lecture, Seattle Central Community College, 1980.
Voltaire's Cafe: Performance Art Today, Evergreen State College, 1979.
Performance Art Today: Sources and Contexts, Public lecture, Washington Hall, Seattle, 1979.
Erik ReeL, the Artist
ReeL's technique exhibits a high degree of transparency, layering, sfgraffito and graffitto, with a strong sense of hand, the hand-made, and an absence of any references to the material world. This work can be seen as a thorough-going critique of materialism, the machine or machine-made, and the triumph of feeling over the manufactured. For ReeL, marking is a defining characteristic of the human and the primordial act of signification and meaning for human consciousness. - Nikki Arconi, 2011
Born: Seattle, 1952
Based: Portland, Oregon, USA
Education
1975 Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, University of Washington, Seattle
1974 University of California, Berkeley
1971-73 Whitman College, Washington, mathematics and philosophy
Selected Solo Shows
Erik ReeL : Zero Point, GraySpace Gallery, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2018
Erik ReeL : Full Circle, Morris Graves Museum of Art, Eureka, California, USA (catalog), 2016
Silence, Director's Choice Show, SCIART, Camarillo, California, USA, 2014
Rebar at the Tool Room, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California, USA, 2014
Tabula Rasa, 643 Project Space, Ventura, US (catalog), 2013
60 @ 60, 60 paintings at 60 years, Ventura, California, USA, 2012
Markings I, Markings II, [two shows], B Street Project Space, Oxnard, California, USA, 2011
Signs of a Lost Civilization, Vita Arts Center, Bell Arts Factory, Ventura, California, USA, 2011
Viva la Vida, Laurel Ventura Gallery, Ventura, California, USA, 2009
Quantum Dynamics of Painting, UCSB Faculty Club, Santa Barbara, California, US (catalog), 2008
Solo exhibitions, Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008
Solo exhibition in three venues, Santa Barbara Visitors Bureau and Film Commission, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2003
Solo Exhibitions, Delphine Gallery, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2000, 2001, 2002 (2), 2003
Thirty Drawings, Mazey Hickey Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1987
Figure: Narrative, Whatcom County Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, Washington, USA, 1986
Testament, Cornish Institute for Allied Arts, Seattle, Wasshington, USA, 1984
Solo exhibitions, Jackson Street Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1983, 1984, 1985
I Dream the Shattering Price of Wisdom, The Warehouse Paintings, Ace Studios, Seattle, Washington, USA 1983
Wall Drawing, and/or, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1979
Facing Death, Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, USA, 1979
Alexander Sasanoff, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1975, 1977
Selected Collective Shows
Butler Institute for American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, USA, 2018
From the Collection, Morris Graves Museum of Art, Eureka, California, USA, 2017
Objects of Impossibility: Contemporary Abstraction, Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2017
Epiphany, Two-person show: Erik ReeL and Diane Silver, Porch Gallery, Ojai, California, USA, 2017
Art For Living, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art [CICA Museum], Seoul [Gyonggi], South Korea, 2017
For the Earth, Postmodern, Washington, DC, US (catalog), 2016
Out of the Great Wide Open, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2015
Retablos For Peace, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California, USA, 2015
Standing in Boots, two-person exhibition with Nash Rightmer, WAV [Working Artists Ventura], Ventura, California, USA, 2014
Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2013, 2014
Art For Peace, Vita Art Center, Bell Arts Center, Ventura, California, USA, 2013
SCIART, Camarillo, California, USA, 2012, 2013
Print Electronico, international exhibition of computer-generated art, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2010
Epocha Nueva, Casa Del Mexicano, Santa Paula, California, USA, 2010
Turbulence, two-person show with Vonder Gray, Galerie 251, Ventura, USA, 2009
Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, USA, 2009, 2014
California State University, Channel Islands, Invitational, curated by Jack Reilly, California, USA, 2009
I-5 Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2008
Ventura County Arts Commission Show, curated by Paul Benavidas, Ventura, California, USA, 2008
Erik ReeL and Friends at the Love House, Love House, Ventura, California, USA, 2008
Best of Ventura County, Ventura County Arts Commission, Ventura, California, USA, 2008, 2009
Earth and Sky, Galerie 251, Ventura, California, USA, 2008
The Gay Pride Show, Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2006, 2007, 2008
The Rainbow Alliance Show, LGBT Support Network Rainbow Alliance, Architexture, Ventura, California, USA, 2007
Picasso, Chagall, and Contemporary Master Prints, Modern Masters Gallery, Palm Desert, California, USA, 2006
71st SAGA Annual Print Show, Society of American Graphic Artists, New York, USA (catalog), 2004
17th Parkside National Print Exhibition, University of Wisconsin, USA (catalog), 2004
Works on Paper, curated by Matthew Pruit, senior curator at the Menil collection, Houston, McNeese State University, Louisiana, USA, 2004
Montpelier Center for the Arts, Montpelier, Virginia, USA, 2004
24th National Print Exhibition, Artlink Contemporary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, 2004
Las Vegas Center for Art and Design, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, 2004
Palindrome scrim, for multi-media piece with improvised score, choreography, Signal+Noise, CREATE + MAP [Media Art Lab] programs at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2004
Landscape Unlimited, Non-conventional takes on the American landscape, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 2004
Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2004
Elizabeth Edwards Gallery, Palm Desert, California, USA, 2003, 2005, 2006
Linda Moore Gallery, San Diego, California, USA, 2003
Lisa Kurts Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee, USA, 2002, 2003
Contemporary Art Forum, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2000, 2001, 2002
Artists for World Peace, Pavilion for World Peace, Kobe, Japan, 2000
Artists for World Peace, Karpeles Museum and Manuscript Library, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2000
New York, LA, Seattle, Center on Contemporary Art [COCA], inaugural COCA traveling exhibition of artists based in the three cities, Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles, California; New York, New York; 1985
City of Seattle Collects, curated by Howard Fox of LACMA, selections from the city of Seattle art collection, Seattle Art Museum Pavilion, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1984
East: West Dialogue, curated by Gene Barto of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, and Brooklyn Art Museum, Brooklyn, New York, USA, 1984
Face to Face, two-person show with Jimmy Jet, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1984
Jackson Street Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1984, 1985
Silver Birds, performance with Sue Ann Harkey, Seattle Art Museum Pavilion, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1984
Night Mind, performance with Sue Ann Harkey, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1984
A Reading After Robbe-Grillet, performance with Kathleen Hunt, Featured Reader, Poetry Seattle, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1984
Burning Angels, performance, Cabaret Voltaire and with dancers at the the Virginia Street Studio, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1984
Krakatoa Kriterion, exhibition of underground painters, curated by Erik ReeL, Jackson Street Gallery at 123 Jackson Street, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1984
Gallery Artists, Jackson Street Gallery at 123 Jackson Street, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1983
Two person show with Gary Hill, and/or art center, Seatlle, Washington, USA 1981
Chihuly et al., Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1980
Eight Seattle Artists, William Traver Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1979
Kodak International, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA, 1979
6500 x 20, an international invitational exhibition of work created on the Xerox 6500 color copier, and/or alternative space, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1978
Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Washington, USA, 1978
International Flux Fest, curated by George Maciunas, and/or alternative space, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1977
National Drawing Show, curated by Wayne Thiebaud, Del Mar Museum, Corpus Christie, Texas, USA, 1976
Collections
Represented in private collections based in Buenos Aires, Berlin, Chicago, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Houston, Indianapolis, London, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, Oakland, Paris, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Santa Fe [NM], Seattle, and Seoul.
Public collections include the permanent collections of: Morris Graves Museum of Art, Seattle City Light, City of Seattle, Czong Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Ventura County, Whitman College.
Statement by Erik ReeL as an artist:
My work has been influenced by micro- and nano-photography, poorly erased whiteboards, sidewalks, ruins, abandoned industrial sites, ancient stone surfaces, fire, sand, sea and ice, charcoal, hieroglyphs, esoteric texts, Hubble Ultra-Deep Field photographs, foundries, wars, concrete, female pubic hair, cytoplasm, craters, wood, photographs of things we cannot see with the naked eye in real time, paintings, railroad box-car markings, Skandinavian runes, blizzards, scratched surfaces, improvisational music, typography, the human voice, the night sky, the inside of an eyeball, the surface of other planets, scars, deserts, scorched earth, and the accidental, which is not really indeterminate, but the result of subtler action on a deeper plane of consciousness.
I have been particularly inspired by improvisational music: Miles Davis, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Theolonus Monk, Dewey Redman, Flamenco, Imrat Khan and the improvisational traditions of the Indian sub-continent.
As for early influences, growing up in Seattle my visual starting point for painting was Mark Tobey’s White Writing paintings. Other influences included Pacific Northwest Scandinavian textile, architectural, and design traditions, which tend to be highly abstract. Later, it was Klee and Miro: In terms of color theory there is a direct lineage from Itten and Klee to Albers to Dahn to myself. At university, influences also came from Michael Spafford and the Black Mountain school via Jacob Lawrence and Robert Jones, then slightly later, Cy Twombly via his exhibitions in the 1970s.
I have found that my researches into human mark making are capable of sensitizing people to the subtleties of their internal cognitive processing in ways that are not easy to verbalize, but are clearly perceived by those observers who look sufficiently long enough to fully experience the paintings directly. This is a process bound by specific cognitive constraints that take a certain amount of time. You cannot rush biology; a glance is insufficient.