In this new series of paintings, Eric Aho explores the various “threshold” spaces between water, earth, sky, and our own physical presence in the landscape. Developed over the past two years and drawn from the artist’s explorations of forests and wetlands, Aho reconstructs and reinvents his observations, composing a visual language of natural forms, feelings, and remembrances. The borders where natural elements meet are disrupted by Aho’s intricate mark-making. Recognizable space is clarified towards the top of many of the paintings, where stark pine trees cut across open patches of sky. Moving towards the bottom of his canvases, closer to the artist’s vantage point, forms become fluid and colors grow more vivid, even fantastical. Critic Andrew Shea writes, “Aho allows the eye to wander, and his collection of smaller glimpses propose a teeming whole, accumulating and collapsing along with the precarious landscapes they depict.”
Chelsea, Manhattan, New York, NY