Eric Pedersen
How would you describe your work to the visually impaired? Dense. Giants may be sleeping.
If you could choose one person in your life that you feel understands your work and supports you more than anyone, who would that be? My imaginary girlfriend... No, no, joking aside, and in all sincerity I have been blessed to receive support from so many people in my life. My parents have always been supportive of me. My family, My friends, friends of friends, my real girlfriend, Matt Marchant, the school I attended, my past teachers, and mentors all encourage, support, believe, and inspire me. I consider myself to be immensely lucky for all of the support I receive. I personally know several artists out there that do not receive a fraction of the support that I do. In fact, if you would like to give some of these artists a bit of the support they deserve and have yet to receive, please come to the show that we are putting on. The name of the show is Embody. It is a pop-up show in Santa Monica California at the Bergamot Station Arts Center, it's on July 21st, from 6pm to 9pm. We would all greatly appreciate your company.
As an artist, how would you define success? I typically define my success on how good my beer tastes at the end of the day. It usually tastes best after spending most of the day in my studio painting. If I haven't spent any time in my studio I don't enjoy my beer at all.
Finish this sentence. People should support art because ____________________. This is a very good question, and it deserves a very good answer.
In which case I think it would be best
to paraphrase something my mentor said in taped interview when asked a similar question: "Unfortunately people focus to much on absolutisms in contemporary society... [For example,] why would someone fund a museum when there are children starving in Africa?... But if you carry that argument to it's logical conclusion, why would you do anything when there are children starving in Africa? Why buy new shoes when their are people starving in Africa? People argue that all the time against NASA. Why would we spend billions of dollars to shoot people into space when people are starving?... And I think there is a really valuable function to the idea behind [space exploration]. Which, is to me very similar to the idea behind art. The expansion of human consciousness; to know what's beyond who we are. I think art functions in that way. If you relegate society to it's most base needs such as providing food and water to everybody, does it mean were a great society? I think it's as important to feed peoples imagination and to perpetuate that kind of advancement in society and culture.
When you're not painting, where would we most likely find you? On the dance floor! I'm a dancer daddy and you can’t stop me!
Would you say your artistic style found you, or you found it? I'm not sure. Although I know my education helped immensely. I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by people far more intelligent and gifted than myself. I listened to what they had to say, eventually I began to understand what they were talking about, at which point I started to instill my work with their teachings.
What medium do you work in, and what attracts you to it? I primarily prefer to use oil paint. I prefer to use oil paint because I really only enjoy painting human flesh, and I'm attracted to the similarities between the two. Flesh, like paint, can be hard, soft, rough, smooth, transparent, opaque, translucent, etc. They are both versatile, multi-functional, and are forever changing at an imperceptible rate. Each is intrinsically ambiguous, which makes them inherently mysterious. Because of this, I always feel like there will be something new to discover each time I sit down to work. I feel like their interaction provides a bottomless pit of creative possibilities.
Do you have any pieces that you would never consider selling? Why? Yes, the old crappy ones, I have too much pride, and they have all been burned.
www.poetsandartists.com
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