East Wing Gallery features works by Murfreesboro’s Erin Anfinson

Release Date: 6/13/2008. Expired: 8/2/2008

Erin Anfinson is an artist who has found a unique way of capturing a new sensibility from the worlds of painting and photographic imagery.

Works by the Murfreesboro artist are on display in the East Wing Gallery at The Renaissance Center in Dickson June 19-Aug. 2. An opening reception will be 6-7:30 p.m. Friday, June 27.

“What the viewer sees in Erin’s work is the painted surface of the canvas and what often appears to be an abstracted form made of tone, color, pattern and line,” said Armon Means, curator at The Renaissance Center. “The truth is that these are merely elements utilized by Erin to engage in a much more complex discourse about the relationship of man to the world around us.”

An instructor of painting and foundations at Middle Tennessee State University, Anfinson was born in northeastern Iowa and many times uses that upbringing in her work through the use of a source image.

Often beginning with photographs or an existing view of some natural form, she slowly breaks the image down into base forms and shapes, allowing these to appear on the surface of the canvas not as direct representational forms, but as abstracted impressions of the things they once were.

“In the long history of abstract work, this establishes a strong dialog between the new image and the original object, yet allows each to maintain its unique presence and identity,” Means said. “Erin speaks to the ability of the work to explore ‘people’s complex perceptions of the natural world.’”

She goes on to say that she “recognizes the notion of an inevitable detachment between the human and animal experience. In spite of this understanding, I am intrigued with my own invented expectations of nature, and I question the degree to which one can be informed and misinformed via wild and de-contextualized representations.”

The reality of the work becomes almost animalistic in its use of materials, formal qualities and surface handling; yet Anfinson always retains strong control over the media and what the viewer ultimately sees.

“One of the key aspects that makes the work so successful is also its tonal range,” according to Means. “Often using a subdued palette, Erin uses an almost monochromatic color scheme that varies from piece to piece yet feels uniform throughout the body of work. This seeks to hold to the relationship the images originally had to the black and white photographs from which they are often created.”

There is also an aspect of layering that can be seen in what one may think of as these “camouflaged” views. What is often hiding is the dominance of the underlying image -- allowing the viewers to read into the works as they choose and giving the freedom to create their own unique realities. This layering also speaks to the nature of collaged art and its ability to build form and space, which is what Anfinson is also doing in these paintings.

Though they are created from a flattened photographic image, she builds new space through the formalities of the painted surface. Whether it is animals, flowers, fauna or confrontation in nature – all are potential starting points for her work. In the end, the viewer is left with so much more than a derivative from an existing image, he is left with a new experience created in them but triggered by the creation of Anfinson.

“My hope is that this experience will not only lead one into thinking about the authenticity of the veiled and abstracted animal imagery in my paintings, but also within one’s general experience of viewing representations of the natural world,” Anfinson says.

TAG Gallery in Nashville currently represents Anfinson. She has also recently exhibited at Ruby Green Contemporary Gallery and was selected in 2006 for publication in the Southern Competition edition of New American Paintings.

For more information on The Renaissance Center’s exhibit of works by Erin Anfinson in the East Wing Gallery, contact Means at (615) 740-5545 or armon.means@rcenter.org.

Galleries at The Renaissance Center are open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday and admission is free.

The Renaissance Center is a fine arts education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Visual Arts Gallery page for more about the gallery.

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