I’ll tell you something. There’s something better than getting
into an exhibition with “International” in the title. It’s when
an artist for whom you have the greatest regard asks you to
participate in a two-man show.
Even better. This exhibition has been a surprise to me. Eric showed me pictures of the pieces he planned on including, which gave me a rough idea of those of mine I might include. But the act of pairing up the actual works and propping them up around the place gave a whole other perspective.
They are an unsentimental collection. They are a direct engagement with things in the world. Not “unmediated”, but mediated through that part of the artist that lives between eye and hand. That part immersed in the history of art.
The subject matter here is broadly “traditional” – still lifes, nudes, townscapes – the bread-and-butter subject matter of art. And that subject matter is presented with a matter-of-factness born out of looking, interrogated through drawing. An assertion of the human in this age of technology.
