Reception: June 6, 5:30-7:30
Ron Ehrlich’s paintings combine the very American dynamic of action painting with the Japanese aesthetic of wood-fired Bizen ceramics. To achieve his remarkable surfaces, some glistening and others matte, he mixes recipes of oil, wax, lacquer, shellac, porcelain dust and marble dust; applies these media by throwing, pouring, brushing, scumbling and glazing; frequently allows or encourages the mixtures to flow into vertical drips; and turns a blowtorch on some areas and layers to fuse the materials into a lustrous glaze.
Though possessed of a dynamic sense of kinetic energy, his paintings also reflect an unusual depth of meditative calm. Broad horizontal bands of color in the under layers are suggestive of landscapes; yet a more immediate impression is created by the energy of the dots, splashes, drips and arching streaks and sprays in the upper layers. These suggest the magnificent processes of nature—storms, cloudbursts and sunbursts that are awe-inspiring rather than frightening, and more distant, mysterious and ancient cosmic activity. In these paintings reside both the joyous experience of the present moment and the timeless tranquility of an eternity we cannot quite fathom.
Ehrlich has had annual solo exhibitions in New York City for the past decade; and his work is held in a growing number of public collections including the Daum Museum in Missouri, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Essays and reviews on Ehrlich’s work have appeared in ARTnews, Art in America, New York Arts, New American Painting, the New York Times, the New York Sun, and the Boston Globe.
In 1999, Ehrlich was selected for Outward Bound: American Art on the Brink of the 21st Century, which traveled to major venues in China, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim. In 2005, he participated in an exhibition at the Art Museum of the Sejong Center for Performing Arts in Seoul, Korea, in 2005. His 2008 exhibition at LewAllen Contemporary includes a number of paintings from his solo exhibition earlier this year at Missouri’s Daum Museum.
Ehrlich received his BFA from Connecticut College in 1976. Several years later, he traveled to Japan where he studied classical pottery making while living in a monastery for five years. On his return to the U.S., he studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and then the Rhode Island School of Design. Since 1985, he has had more than 30 solo exhibitions and numerous group shows in cities such as Boston, New York, Atlanta and Seattle.
