Short Artist Biography
Erin’s roots in the
arts run deep. Her great-great grandmother
was Jane Gallatin Powers, who had the first
artist’s studio in Carmel and who, along
with her husband
 Frank, created the artist’s
colony which is today Carmel-by-the-Sea. Her
grandparents Lolly and Bill Fassett built
Nepenthe Restaurant in Big Sur, a legendary
watering hole for artist, poets, writers,
and bohemians.
Erin is the cofounder
of Big Sur Arts Initiative, a nonprofit arts
education organization dedicated to
nurturing art and culture in the Big Sur
community. An award-winning writer, painter,
and teacher, her work is collected
internationally.
In 2001, Erin was
honored with an invitation to be chosen as
the first American artist-in-residence of
the Hamada International Children’s Art
Museum, Hamada, Japan. Works from this trip
were displayed at the Monterey Museum of
Art.
Erin’s work is
currently available through Monterey Museum
of Art, Atelier Carmel, Carmel Bay Company,
Local Color, and the Phoenix Shop in Big Sur,
and through her own Studio One in Big Sur.
Artist Statements, Landscape &
Figurative
Landscape
My landscape work is
informed by the atmospheric light and
dramatic natural forms of California’s
Central Coast. Early influences include many
of the 20th century Monterey Bay painters,
early California Impressionists and
Tonalists.
Working pigment from
thin to thick then scratching and scraping
away, “unpainting,” I begin with a tonal
abstraction, usually no more than five
shapes, exploring and repeating variations
in color, pattern, and texture.
My painting process
begins with drawing what I see every day –
the trees, the hills, the shape of sky and
sea, obsessively re-examining the familiar.
I work in notebooks first, then tonal
sketches, selecting ideas that inspire
deeper application to explore in paint on
canvas. Finally, bold brushstrokes and a
full spectrum palette support an expression
with which I hope to convey the sense of awe
I feel confronted by the spectacular and
powerful natural beauty of this region.
This body of work is
inspired by scenes of the Central Coast of
California – from Tomales Bay in the north
to Big Sur in the south. Inspired by the
works of my great great grandmother Jane
Gallatin Powers, who began as a California
plein air painter in the tradition of
William Merritt Chase and became a Modernist
after her relocation to Paris in the 1920’s,
these paintings reflect a similar shift
toward abstraction, and are literally
painted “in her footsteps.”
Figurative
My figurative work is
informed by the emotion of color, the
sensuality of working in paint on canvas,
and the lyricism of the feminine form.
Influences include the simple line of
Japanese wood-cuts, and the immediacy of
Matisse, Picasso, and Leger.
Working directly from
the model, I begin with large charcoal
drawings on newsprint, later selecting an
image to explore on canvas. In my paintings,
I try to retain the immediate, energetic and
gestural response that these drawings
capture, while developing color, texture,
and pattern, on a larger scale.
Over a course of seven
years, this body of work emerged from weekly
drawing sessions with a rotating group of
models: Jenny, Signe, Victoria, Bettina,
Mary, and Jane. While I painted and the
women posed, we talked of our lives, jobs,
children, parents, dreams, and sometimes
sorrows. During these sessions, images of a
woman in repose surrounded by her favorite
things – books, fruit and flowers, a cup of
tea – seemed to become more than just a
celebration of time away from the demands of
work, but a radical act of claiming time for
simply being.
Through color, pattern,
and texture and the sheer delight and
physicality of paint at the service of a
composition, my work seeks to explore the
subject of time, the value of rest, and the
need for pleasure. |
