Artist Statement: My work is based on objects I have found on beaches, and the baseline of my subject matter is nature. Beach combing absorbs and relaxes me, as it does many others. Even the choice of beach objects, the hunting and the finding, followed by the choice of which objects to lay out on a panel calms me, reaching into the sub conscious, and, as many kinds of art tend to do first and foremost, evoking surprise and keener self awareness.
In 2020 I painted Heavenly Eye, which was the initial culmination of this relatively new working process. After years of painting more realistic landscapes and still lifes, one rainy day I collected and laid out some beach objects onto a piece of driftwood, which was met with the affectionate derision of a visiting artist friend. How cliche could I get? But my interest had been grabbed, and my work moved steadily in the present direction.
The three dimensional objects on the panels’ flat or slightly stressed surfaces; their transformation on the painted canvases from small to large, their juxtaposition of wishful contained order with the chaos of the surrounding space or cosmos, all these elements interested me. In one sense the transformation was easy as the new canvases were also realistically painted (although the eventual necessary change to oils, due to a growing acrylics allergy, was not easy), but the heavier black outlines, placement, shapes, layers, color, texture, composition, and marks were different, encompassing a more obvious abstract reach, an attempted distillation focusing on either personal experience or mood. Sometimes both.
The square or rectangular shapes of the panels may be a nod to traditional windows looking out or looking in or to traditional art hanging on a wall; or homage to an ancient, square black radiator hanging in my white studio. The floating in airy, ocean-like space might be in part the influence of the two islands.
I was born in Nassau, Bahamas close to Inagua, Bahamas where I spent my early childhood and returned during summers throughout my early teenage years. Great Inagua, whose business was the production of salt, even now influences my work as an artist, as does a shared family intergenerational island in Maine where I collect most of the beach objects for my assemblages. As an adult, I have resided primarily in New England, settling in Boston in my mid-twenties after a couple of years studying printmaking at The Art Students League in New York City. In my early thirties, upon meeting my husband in 1979, I moved across the river to Cambridge. After raising a daughter (during which period, in addition to painting, I wrote Finding Bob’s Glasses, a memoir now out of print), my husband and I continued to live in Cambridge. My studio is at The Boston Center for the Arts. I am a member of the BCA Studio Residency program from mid 2022 until mid 2025.
Resume: Aileen Erickson
Studio: #416, BCA Center for the Arts, 551 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02116
Email: pittori@gmail.com
Art Education:
1963-4 State University of Iowa (Printmakers Workshop under Lasanky; also The Writers’ Workshop)
1967 BA Sarah Lawrence College (one third studio art)
1966 Skowhegan School of Painting
1967-69 The Arts Students League, NYC after being accepted at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY which was very briefly attended
PRINTS:
1972 Boston City Hall, Main Gallery, Experimental Etching Studio
1972 “The Boston Printmakers at the Rose Art Museum,” Waltham, MA
1973 The Opening Exhibition of the Arts and Science Center, Nashua, NH
1975 “Elexander Knevvsen and Aileen Erickson” at the Boston Center for the Arts Gallery (later The Mills Gallery)
1976 “Fifteen Printmakers from the Experimental Etching Studio,” 6 aquatint-with-line prints, Dreitzer Gallery, Brandeis University, Waltham
INK/CHARCOAL/WATERCOLOR/GOUACHE ON PAPER, ACRYLIC STILL LIFE ON CANVAS:
1982 Solo exhibition: “Aileen Erickson at the Mills Gallery”
Group shows with the Boston Center for the Arts including:
1979 Main Gallery, Boston City Hall
1980 “The Mood of New England, Past and Present” The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
1982 “Boston Center at the Boston Five” The Boston Five Cent Savings Bank
Other group shows including:
1982 “Watercolors, the Medium Explored,” 3 works, Van Buren/Brazelton/Cutting Gallery
1983 “Sixty Boston Artists,” Main Gallery, Boston City Hall
1982 “Boston Within” Curator David Ross (ICA), 2 works, Cyclorama Hall
1988 Solo exhibition: “Watercolor, Gouache, Acrylic Still Life Paintings 1982-8” Mills Gallery
1984,1985,1986 Mills Gallery BCA Annual Group show
2003-4 Dec-Feb “The Perceived Object: Directions in Contemporary Still Life” 5 paintings, Beard and Weil Art Galleries,Wheaton College
2007 “Studios@35” Curator James Manning, 2 works, Mills Gallery
2008 Art and Author Exhibition, 45th Reunion,16 works, Concord Academy Math and Arts Center
2011 “Off the Wall” Curator Susan L. Stoops, 1 painting, Danforth Art Museum
PAINTINGS ON PAPER, ACRYLIC ON LARGER CANVASES, BEACH OBJECTS ON PAPER AND ON PANELS:
2009-2010 “Amalgam” Curator Evan Garza, Artist Studio Building (ASB) Annual Exhibit, 2 works, Mills Gallery
2010 “Objects Falling into Place/Space” Solo exhibit: South End Branch of the Boston Public Library
2011 “This Must be the Place” Curator Emily Isenberg, 5 works, ASB Annual Exhibit, Mills Gallery
2011 “Into the Light” Curator Fay Chandler, 2 works, The Chandler Gallery (formerly Maud Morgan Gallery)
2013-14 Dec-Feb “The Infinite Space of the Possible” Curator Lynne Cooney, 15 works, ASB Annual Exhibit, Mills Gallery (‘This Land is a small land’ The Boston Globe, Dec. 31, 2013 ‘Small canvases and infinite space’ plus www.youtube.com/watch? V=13LyNAOHWME)
2014-15 Dec-Jan “The Triggering Town, Details of Subtle Significance” Curators Randi Hopkins and Zelana Davis, 4 works, ASB Annual Exhibit, Mills Gallery
2015-2016 Dec-Jan “Dream Weavers” Curator Debra Olin, one large acrylic on canvas, Brickbottom Gallery, sponsored by The Art Connection
2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 ASB Group Exhibits, BCA Lobby Gallery
2017 July-Sept “Real/Ideal, Turning Utopia into Reality” Curator David Guerra, large acrylic on canvas, ASB Annual Exhibit, Mills Gallery
Except for 1998, 2006, 2021, South End Open Studios
OIL ON LARGER CANVASES, BEACH OBJECTS ON PANELS (ASSEMBLAGES)
2016 July-Sept “Placemaking Objects: BCA Artist Studios Exhibition” Curator Jennifer Hall, one objects-on-panel work, ASB Annual Exhibit, Mills Gallery
2018 One Person Exhibit, curator Randi Hopkins, BCA Lobby Gallery
2022 November Two Person Exhibit (Barbieri/Erickson) paintings and assemblages, The Tavern Club, Boston
2024 Bromfield Gallery, Plus One exhibition, 36x36” acrylic/oil on canvas, guest of Bromfield Gallery member Patty Stone
2024 Piano Craft Gallery, Fire in the Basement, 3 framed black ink and watercolor paintings on paper, BCA exhibit, managed by BCA resident Rebecca Greene
2022-2025 Boston Center for the Arts Studio Residency program