Eric Strauss (United States) Residency: May 2018
I am the son of parents who emigrated from Germany. Our family often went to museums and early on I enrolled in art school. My art training was comprised of two years at The Art Students League in New York and culminated with an M.F.A. degree in painting and drawing at Brooklyn College (CUNY).
My work follows the spirit of some of the great landscape painters of all time. I am a mid-career artist who has always been fascinated with the natural and built landscape. I enjoy the plain air painting process.
Over the years, due to my background in architectural design, I have completed a series of paintings about the built environment. These series take the viewer back in time, into for example old tenement buildings, perhaps a place that their ancestors inhabited. These views are meant to evoke history, memory and mixed feelings.
Drawing is an important means of my capturing the world around me as well as putting together some of the concepts I will pursue in my paintings. The subway in New York is a constant drawing model, a stimulant to connect with the visual and social activity going on around me.
At Studio Kura I will continue exploring architecture, memory and interior/exterior spaces. This will be in the form of drawings and paintings combining architecture and the figure.
Balcony 2017
Combination 2018
Stair 2017
Bedroom 5 2017
Bath 2 2017