Daniel Raphael Gallery is delighted to present WHERE WERE YOU WHEN…, the first UK solo exhibition of American-born, New-Jersey Based artist Erik Minter. The show runs from September 18th - October 9th. Minter was previously interviewed in Issue 21 of Create! Magazine.
Human emotions and interactions, the persistence of memory, and the importance of nostalgia. These are the core pillars behind the conception of Erik Minter’s latest series of works that are to be exhibited in London later this month. Heavily inspired by his coastal surroundings, the artist draws on the natural world around him, recontextualizing it into paintings that capture the ephemeral.
From a first glance, the works merge soft pastel gradients with bold brushstrokes of color to create a level of intensity and intimacy within his figures not seen in earlier works. The pastel gradients throughout are representative of negative space within the compositions, ultimately forcing the figures to become the focal points and allowing them to stray from the abstract into the lucid figurative.
In each of his paintings, Minter focuses on conveying emotion and exploring the relationship between the viewer and the figure. There is an interplay between these figures, which is most noticeable when the artworks are hung side by side. In Gold Bonds (2021), the main character peers off beyond the boundaries of the composition. Whether forlorn or simply pensive, her bright green eyes are emphasized by gentler, darker shades of green in her hair. Minter’s tonal subtleties highlight levels of emotional depth on the physical surface of the canvas, similarly depicted through an array of blues and yellows in Stoic Reverie (2021) and Nough Said (2021).
“In my latest work, I’m exploring human expression. The paintings are not of anyone at this particular time, but for me, they act as portraits of strangers that carry our emotions through their facial attitudes”. – Erik Minter.
The artist repeatedly makes reference to feelings of nostalgia and memory that are at the forefront of each painting in this exhibition. Detailed in each figure’s individual expressions and gestural brushstrokes, the result is an ebb and flow of time. As such, these works look to both the past and future through the mind and hands of the artist and it is for this reason that the exhibition’s title WHERE WERE YOU WHEN… has been chosen to highlight these moments that remain as landmarks in our memory.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Erik Minter (b. 1979, USA) spent his childhood years in Southern Maryland. After completing a Life Study Course at the Corcoran Museum in Washington, he went on to complete a BA at the Pratt Institute, New York. Selected exhibitions include: Portraits and Consensus Works, 19 Karen Contemporary Art Space (2021); Collective Synergy, A Screaming Art Group Online Exhibition (2021); Summer Gathering, GR Gallery (2020); When Spiders Unite, They Can Tie Down a Lion, Daniel Raphael Gallery, London (2020), Art Walk, Hotel Indigo, NY (2009).
