TR Ericsson: Cocktail paintings

11 November 2024 - 31 January 2025
TR Ericsson, No Smoking, 2024, Nicotine, alcoholic cocktail and metallic gold silkscreen ink on canvas, 33 x 40.6 cm - 13 x 16 in
TR Ericsson, No Smoking, 2024, Nicotine, alcoholic cocktail and metallic gold silkscreen ink on canvas, 33 x 40.6 cm - 13 x 16 in

Can a work of art retain its meaning and beauty without any compromise to the ugly truths it may contain? TR Ericsson's cocktail paintings consist of blown-up snapshots created with materials that reveal the complexity of the filial bond and the impact of one generation on another. They are infused with nicotine and alcohol, haunted images glittering with gold.  The tobacco-brown B side of each painting divulges elements of his archive in a compositional approach operating between literature, philosophy, and intimate confession. This four piece vignette expands from the intimate into universal declarations on time, love, loss, memory and addiction.

 

Since the untimely death of his mother in 2003, TR Ericsson has obsessively constructed an expansive and conceptual mixed-media project investigating the lives of the artist, his family and the changing cultural landscape that impacted each generation. At the core of his practice is a desire to understand what one can know about another’s suffering and the value of that understanding.

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    TR Ericsson talks about his nicotine works, their stability, and his new body of cocktail paintings.
  • Ericsson begins with an archive of inherited photographs and documents, repurposing these artifacts with traditional as well as experimental art...

    TR Ericsson, A Still Life, 2024

    Ericsson begins with an archive of inherited photographs and documents, repurposing these artifacts with traditional as well as experimental art materials to develop a series of intertwining narratives centered around the artist’s mother. These act as intimate vignettes that expand into universal declarations on time, love, loss, memory, and addiction. His ongoing project has been exhibited and acquired by museums across the USA including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art (NY) and many other private and public collections. 

     

    After his mother’s passing, he was confronted with the nicotine stains on the walls of her home, and set out to make portraits of her using no art supplies or traditional art materials. He chose instead to use only the materials that surrounded her at the time of her passing, so that those materials would carry the narrative of her life and death. These included nicotine, alcohol and funerary ashes. Starting with something like a DIY silkscreen, he began his nicotine works by lighting hundreds of cigarettes in a box and moving them beneath the screen as they smoldered, burning the screen and staining the paper to register images. 

  • The screen becomes the ceiling of the home, collecting the stains as the process detours from normal silk screening. From...
    TR Ericsson, A Still Life (B side), 2024

    The screen becomes the ceiling of the home, collecting the stains as the process detours from normal silk screening. From there it has been a process he’s continued to master and learn about for nearly two decades, a journey which has led to many in-depth discussions with conservators on the mysterious disappearance of some images, and the stubborn, lasting stains of others. 

     

    While embracing instability, in 2024, he made a conceptual move that built in stability by first layering in images with alcohol and acrylic resin before burning them with the cigarette smoke. His mother at her table, smoking and drinking. The parties, the pleasure, the addiction and the loneliness coupled to the materials, and if the tobacco stains were to fade, the Long Island Iced Tea isn’t going anywhere.  The work on the backside of each painting reveals a generous amount of information, which is concealed by the haunted images produced on the fronts. Part of this is pragmatic: where was this work made, by who, with what. A larger element adds sensitive information, additional images, correspondence between characters, details, which do not erase the mystery while drawing one deeper into unspoken truths, twists, and illustrations of otherwise forgotten events that shed light on the impact of our relationships and the ghosts at play in our daily direction.

  • TR Ericsson, There's Nothing Like a Daughter, 2024 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    TR Ericsson, There's Nothing Like a Daughter (B-Side), 2024 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    TR Ericsson, Pineway Trails, 2024 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    TR Ericsson, Pineway Trails (B-Side), 2024 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    TR Ericsson, Sue Robinson, 2024 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    TR Ericsson, Sue Robinson (B-Side), 2024 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    TR Ericsson, A Still Life, 2024 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    TR Ericsson, A Still Life (B-Side), 2024 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    TR Ericsson, There's Nothing Like a Daughter, 2024