Today we’d like to introduce you to Erica Everage.
Hi Erica, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Los Angeles, CA to two interior designer parents. I was a child actor, appearing mainly in commercials, with one starring role in a feature film made for HBO called The Sender. I began drawing the nude figure religiously when I was barely thirteen years old and won a Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Award in 2005 for my drawing. Luckily, the Spotlight Award won me an apprenticeship with the late sculptor Robert Graham, who taught me to sculpt. I applied to both art schools and liberal arts universities for college and had a hard time deciding between two art schools and Northwestern, where I ultimately enrolled. My dueling passions for performing arts and visual arts led me to choose NU, where I hoped I wouldn’t have to choose between the two and could continue to pursue both. I now have a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Fine Art from Otis College of Art and Design, and am a practicing artist in Los Angeles.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has certainly not been a smooth road, ha! The biggest challenges have been financial concerns and self-doubt. In my view, unless you get very lucky or already have access to wealth, it’s rare to be able to only do only what you love right from the start. The struggle is juggling side jobs to maintain yourself while you pursue your artistic endeavors. And then having enough energy when you’re not working your side job to do your creative work. Self-doubt infiltrates all aspects of this, in my experience!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a visual artist who makes paintings and wall sculptures. My work is process and material-oriented; it’s driven by mark-making and an interest in how a transformative sequence is recorded. I often use dance (my own dance) as the starting point for a painting. I will record the dance and play it back in slow motion, interpreting it with paint and brush. I call these paintings Dance Friezes, as they’re horizontally oriented and take inspiration from classical and ancient friezes. I’m particularly interested in what it means/has meant to move through the world in a woman’s body through different spaces, histories, and times. To paraphrase Zach Baker, one of the curators for Reisig & Taylor Contemporary, where I’ve recently shown work, I “work with color, texture, and structure to evolve ancient or abandoned imagery in contemporary forms. Folding the past into the present, I find blurry connections between history and memory, with attention to perennial—though often forgotten—symbols that determine relations between gendered modes of embodiment and (recognizable) categories of identity. In particular, many of the figures from which I work in abstraction are ancient feminine Western deities or icons—such as the Sheela na gig—once placed above doors and entrances in Ireland as guardians of liminal spaces. At the same time, my use of interstitial materials, such as burlap and artificial turf sub-base, suggests that this engagement with voids via voided, discarded, or in-between substances begins on the level of the substrates of my work.”
My work is currently on view at the Hotel Figueroa in DTLA, where I have a solo show-up through February 2024. The show is titled IN HER IMAGE and features paintings on canvas, burlap, and wood panels. I was also recently included in a three-person show, SKINS, HOLES, & HOVELS, at Reisig & Taylor Contemporary on S La Cienega. That show was the first time I exhibited my wall sculptures.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
Yes! I return to these texts often: Vexy Thing by Imani Perry
A Woman’s Right to Pleasure by Amir Marashi
And the Iconic Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power by Audre Lorde.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ericaeverage.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericaeverageart/
Image Credits
For images including my likeness, photo credit: ROBIEE ZIEGLER Images of my work only: photos courtesy of Reisig & Taylor Contemporary
