This is the official website for Erik ReeL, a North American visual artist, writer, and philosopher [previously performance artist, educator, art critic, and sometimes curator] whose work initially explored identity and sexuality, before maturing into his current work examining the cognitive processing of marking on a flat surface. For ReeL such marking is a defining characteristic of the human and the primordial act of signification and meaning for human consciousness. The freedom and risk of improvisation has also been a fundamental aspect of his work.

ReeL’s work has been exhibited in the Seattle Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Morris Graves Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Butler Institute of American Art, and in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, South Korea, Japan, and Argentina. It is in private collections based in Barcelona, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Houston, Indianapolis, London, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Montreal, New York, Oakland, Paris, Portland [OR], San Francisco, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Fe [NM], Seattle, and Seoul. Public collections include the Morris Graves Museum of Art, Seattle City Light, City of Seattle, Czong Institute of Contemporary Art [Seoul], Museum of Ventura County, and Whitman College.

ReeL studied mathematics and philosophy at Whitman College, art history and philosophy at Berkeley, both studio and art history at the University of Washington, and taught at Seattle Central College in Seattle for five years. Born and raised in Seattle, he is currently based in Portland, Oregon with his spouse, Rhonda P. Hill, founder of EDGE Fashion Intelligence.

ERIK REEL

ERIK REEL