After 20 years of dreaming and 2 years of searching I finally landed my own studio space! The studio is located in the Elizabeth Neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina about half a mile from our house. I’m so excited to get started on some new projects. I will have a studio welcoming party in the next few weeks.
For my #NYC friends, I have a piece in the show “The Space Between” curated by Edna Cardinale at Julie Saul Gallery opening this Saturday, March 9th, 10am - 12:30pm. Please come out and say hello! Thanks to Edna Cardinale for including me and to Rick Wester Fine Art, Inc. for organizing the loan.
I am honored that Maude Arsenault curated Removed into this years Art Souterrain Festival. The festival is a main attraction for Montreal each March and I am so excited to participate. This is one of the most public displays of my work which was said to have been viewed in person by over 150,000 people! I was fortunately invited to the festival and spent an incredible week in Montreal. I met so many amazing artists, and art lovers and I hope to visit that wonderful city again in the near future.
It’s difficult to explain the feeling when you put your heart into your work and then someone who truly appreciates it builds a relationship with you and then makes the leap to live with your art. It’s like a part of you and that person merge and you know both of you will never be the same. Thanks Michael Pascual for making my work and life a permanent fixture of your home in #HongKong. I excitedly await our next hangout but until then I’ll be hanging right there on your living room wall. Thanks Kurt Tong for the framer recommendation. They were really great to work with.
Once again, pieces from Removed are finding their way into another country. The exhibition HELLO, ROBOT. DESIGN BETWEEN HUMAN AND MACHINE curated by AMELIE KLEIN, THOMAS GEISLER, MARLIES WIRTH, and FREDO DE SMET runs from January 23 - April 22, 2019 at Museum Art Architecture Technology in Lisbon, Portugal.
In the early spring of 2016, amidst the media blitz of the 2016 Presidential Election, I noticed something very strange happening online. All across the United States, Facebook users, some real some fake, were creating event invitations for obscure and hard to believe public concerts in unlikely places. The first to catch my attention was “Fred Durst LIVE at Rose's Department Store”. Thousands had RSVP’d and many commented, shared, and argued about the veracity of the event. I knew I needed to show up. The day of the event I made portraits of the those who showed up. The fake event sparked a several months journey for me as I attended dozens more of these events across the country that summer. The project as I could sense was touching on one of the real world examples of how the uncharted territory of social media was falsely shifting peoples opinions, beliefs and even actions. More of the series NoShow can be viewed here.
The day before the 2016 Presidential election I was interviewed on the BBC’s technology program Click and months later the project was introduced as a major solo exhibition in Merignac France for the Merignac Photographic Festival in 2017.
Most recently, one of the images from NoShow was selected for a group exhibition here in my home state. I am excited that the photograph “Hoods Up, 2016” will be on display in large format for the 5th Edition of EYES on MAIN Street in Wilson, NC. The festival officially opens April 27th, 2019 and I’m so excited to be showing at this exhibition once again.
Hoods Up, 2016 / Morganton, NC
I am honored to be the recipient of the 2019 ASC Regional Artist Project Grant! I will use the funds to purchase an updated scanner for my studio as well as more sheet film to continue and finalize my Removed Series.
So much exciting news that only some of it will fit in this update. Here are the happenings from last winter to now, from India, to Switzerland, to Vietnam and back again. The biggest and most current news is that Thursday I will travel to Vietnam for an exhibition of new "Removed" photographs that were supported by The World Economic Forum. More information on that and much much more below! As always thank you so much for your support. Huge things are happening and I am trying to be better at keeping you up to date with all of it.
I am incredibly fortunate to be working with Rick Wester Fine Art who has now made my work available online via ARTSY. Please support my practice and my family by collecting my prints.
I have been waiting for, and working on this exhibition all year! I met the prolific curator Francois Cheval while in Lianzhou, China last fall. When I told him about NoShow he was immediately enthusiastic about bringing the project to France. This will be my first major solo exhibition in Europe and will include photographs, video, audio, and sculpture. More information about the series can be found here. The exhibition ran from early October to mid December 2017.
Three pieces from Removed are still on their journey around the world as part of the exhibition, Hello, Robot. Design Between Man and Machine. The five year tour began at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, it was later installed at Design Museum Gent in Belgium and is currently on display at the Switzerland based museum Gewerbemuseum Winterthur.
Last year I helped with the student gallery and workshops for the kids of Wilson to create an exhibition of their work. This year I was asked to be one of the 100 participating artists in the Eyes on Main Street Wilson Outdoor Photo Festival. My photograph "Jamie, Jody, and Aiden, 2014" was selected this year and was on exhibit in downtown Wilson, NC from April until August. I will have work from my NoShow series in next years festival.
"Every day we encounter family members, friends, visitors, and strangers; over the course of our lives, our social circle continues to expand. Modern technology makes us feel more connected than ever, allowing us to “meet” endless friends at any time through our screens and to feel like we are never alone. Is this true? This exhibition uses artworks to examine the changing social landscape of the virtual age, illuminating the importance of real relationships in our lives. Visitors are invited to witness encounters – from their first moments to their eventual conclusion – and rediscover the value of face-to-face encounters. Such meetings present invaluable opportunities to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the other, and therefore of ourselves."
Curator: Shir Meller-Yamaguchi
Several pieces from my Holder Series are currently on display at Cassilhaus as part of the group exhibition Diapositive. The exhibition will be up during the Click! Photography Festival and I will give a shared artist talk with the incredibly hardworking and prolific artist and friend of mine, Amy Herman on October 17th, 2018. Information to RSVP for the event is listed both on the Click! and Cassilhaus website.
The World Economic Forum recently reached out to me with the idea of creating new Removed photographs that would represent a glimpse into digital culture across Southeast Asia. In June I spent several weeks photographing across Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, and Indonesia. On September 11th, 2018 a selection of the photographs will be revealed at The World Economic Forum on ASEAN 2018 Summit in Hanoi, Vietnam where I will engage with economic leaders on the topics surrounding my work. I'm very excited about the new photographs and can't wait to see where they end up after the summit.
Last November I traveled all across India with the film maker Jessica Sadana and her amazing crew creating Removed photographs and interviewing dozens of people. Our journey was recorded and is now being finalized as a short documentary film which will be released in the next few months. Please keep an eye out for that. I think it will be a film as moving as the photographs I made.
The amazing photo consultant and my lovely agent, Julie Grahame and I will be heading down to Georgia for a workshop on our professional best practices and I'm sure some insight to the horror stories as well. It should be a really fun time together. Sign up if you are in the area!
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www.ericpickersgill.com
www.removed.social
www.noshow.social
