Erik ReeL contemporary artist

This work is meant to be entered into, wandering about in, musing and letting it sink in. It relies on subtle cognitive processing that is not controllable with the conscious mind or intellect. It is not designed to engage the intellect, but rather to subvert it. It cannot be instantlly read, but seen over time, and it is not possible to accurately reproduce it digitally, for human bicameral vision is necessary to see it, and the intelelct disengaged to perceive it. The painting itself, if given sufficient time, and seen live, accomplishes the latter on its own.

Erik ReeL works primarily in liquid acrylics combined with various drawing media, such as soft pastels, colored pencils, and charcoal. In his original serigraphs, he pioneered using heat-set inks for art serigraphs which exhibit superior color depth, a wider range of transparency, and more robust surface qualities than traditional art-serigraph inks.

"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