Erickson's Art Elegant, Subtle
WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL :: RHYTHM :: 26
Thursday, May 9, 2002
Jacob Stockinger

Robert Erickson's art whispers rather than shouts.

Perhaps that's why it stands overshadowed by large color photographs and big sculptural installations at the Madison Art Center's Wisconsin Triennial. (Erickson has not gone completely unrecognized, since this is his second Triennial.)

But even if you overlooked his almost hypnotic work at the Art Center, now a whole solo show of Erickson's paintings, prints and drawings can be seen through May 31 at the Wisconsin Academy Gallery, 1922 University Ave. (Gallery hours are Mon.-Fri., 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For information, call 263-1692.)

The show - called "New Hope" - features a dozen single and multiple pieces. It is elegant and understated, and stands in direct contrast to the garishly colorful oil paintings of formal dresses that preceded it.

If you have to categorize these works, you might call them minimalist, in the same way that 1,000-year-old Song ceramics from China are minimalist. Lines are sparse, color is subtle and motion barely exists. These austere works display a certain Asian sensibility, a Zen-like meditative quality.

Erickson, who lives and works on a rural farm near Stevens Point, where he also teaches at the UW-Stevens Point campus, says he displays actual objects from nature throughout his studio as models for inspiration. But by the time he is done with his art, the natural objects seem transformed, much the way, say, a Cubist might use a human model.

They don't seem abstract exactly, but neither do they seem representational. They are instead some kind of hybrid, the visual equivalent of a Wallace Stevens poem that emphasizes not the thing itself but the idea of the thing. Like Stevens' poems, Erickson's work exudes a symbolist or metaphorical esthetic. This is art right out of Plato's cave.

True, look carefully at his monochromatic world - of brown and white, of black and gray - and you will discern the shape of a burned tree, a seed pod, a blade of prairie grass, a rock bluff or haystack. But what you also see are just quasi-imaginary shapes that somehow work differently on the wall than they do in nature.

"People ask me what they mean," Erickson says of his oil paintings done on paper and wood, and of his prints. "I tell them I really don't know until they come out."

Looking at them induces a state of restful wakefulness, and brings the busy world to a refreshing stasis. This is an art one could live with for a long time without exhausting its meaning or appeal.

Erickson is not yet represented by a gallery in Madison. He should be. His art suits the sensibility of many viewers here, and his prices (from $300 to $500) make them the kind of art that even Madison - where everyone expects things to be cheap or, better, free - can afford.

The one thing you can't afford is not to experience it.

madison.com is operated by Capital Newspapers, publishers of the Wisconsin State Journal, The Capital Times, Agri-View and Apartment Showcase. All contents Copyright ©, Capital Newspapers.