NEWFANE — For the month of January, the Crowell Gallery at Moore Free Library, 23 West St., presents a free exhibit, “On the Way By Painting En Passant” by C. Peter Erickson.
In his artist statement, Erickson says he applies the original French chess definition of “passing through” to his art, “establishing the world's impermanence, its placement neither here nor there, but somewhere along the way.”
“For many years I was most interested in painting with oil on canvas, eventually trending toward incidental objects caught in motion, en passant. For this approach, I found airbrush techniques, once relegated to photo retouching, to be well suited for depicting the world moving before my eyes.
“I find it interesting when practical and commercial techniques such as airbrush, film photography, and screen printing pass through a period of obsolescence, to later become available for making art. This, too, is an expression of the passage of time.”
The airbrush technique he employs in his recent work enhances the feeling of moving through an event, sometimes slowly and gently, and other times wildly propelled.
Erickson attributes his work to the fact that he has always liked “making stuff.”
In 1980, he became an architect. Following many years of construction project management, he has been biding his time by making paintings, unencumbered by the constraints of structure and gravity.
He will be available at the gallery on Saturday, Jan. 9 and Saturday, Jan. 23, between noon and 2 p.m. His work can also be found at cpetererickson.com.
The Crowell Gallery is open during library hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1 to 5 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays, 2 to 6 p.m., and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The library maintains strict adherence to COVID-19 guidelines and limits the number of patrons to 10.