Erik ReeL
Born 1952, Seattle
Selected Solo and Two-Person Shows
2024
Street, Laura Vincent Gallery, Portland, Oregon
2023
What is so lovely about the end of the world? PLACE, Portland, Oregon
2018
Zero Point, GraySpace Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2017
Epiphany, Porch Gallery, Ojai, California
2016
Full Circle, Morris Graves Museum of Art, Eureka, California
2014
Silence, SCIART, Camarillo, California
Rebar at the Tool Room, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California
Standing in Boots, with Nash Rightmer, WAV Projects, Ventura, California
2013
Tabula Rasa, 643 Project Space, Ventura, California
2012
60 @ 60, Sixty Paintings at 60 Years, Ventura, California
2011
Markings, B Street Project Space, Oxnard, California
Signs of a Lost Civilization, Vita Arts Center, Bell Arts Factory, Ventura, California
2009
Viva la Vida, Laurel Ventura Gallery, Ventura, California
Turbulence, with Vonder Gray, Galerie 251, Ventura, California
2008
Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
University of California Santa Barbara, Faculty Club
2006
Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2005
Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2004
Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2003
Delphine Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
University of California Santa Barbara, Faculty Club
2002
Delphine Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
University of California Santa Barbara, Faculty Club
2001
Delphine Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
University of California Santa Barbara, Faculty Club
2000
Delphine Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
1987
Mazey Hickey Gallery, Seattle, Washington
1986
Whatcom County Museum, Bellingham, Washington
1985
Jackson Street, Gallery, Seattle, Washington
1984
Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington
Cornish Institute of Allied Arts, Seattle, Washington
Jackson Street, Gallery, Seattle, Washington
1983
Jackson Street, Gallery, Seattle, Washington
Silver Birds, performance, Poetry Seattle, Washington
1982
The Warehouse Paintings, Vogue, Seattle, Washington
Performance with Sue Ann Harkey, Seattle Art Museum Pavilion, Seattle, Washington
A Reading After Robbe-Grillet, performance with K. Hunt, Poetry Seattle, Washington
1981
and/or, Seattle, Washington
Performance with Sue Ann Harkey, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
1979
Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington
1978
A Reading After Robbe Grillet, performance, Cabaret Apocalypse, Seattle
1977
Alexander Sasanoff Gallery, Seattle, Washington
1975
Alexander Sasanoff, Seattle, Washington
Selected Collective Shows
2025
FACT: Fashion and Art Create Tomorrow, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington
2018
Butler Institute for American Art, Youngstown, Ohio
2017
From the Collection, Morris Graves Museum of Art, Eureka, California
Art For Living, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea
Objects of Impossibility: Contemporary Abstraction, Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2016
For the Earth: Art for Global Ecology, Postmodern, Washington DC
2015
Out of the Great Wide Open, Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, California
Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California
Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2014
Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California
Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2013
Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
SCIART, Camarillo, California
Elizabeth Gordon Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
Working Artists Ventura (WAV) Project Space, Ventura, California
2012
SCIART, Camarillo, California
Vita Art Center, Bell Arts Factory, Ventura, California
2011
Vita Art Center, Bell Arts Factory, Ventura, California
2010
Print Electronico, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Epocha Nueva, Casa Del Mexicano, Santa Paula, California
Vita Art Center, Bell Arts Factory, Ventura, California
2009
Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California
California State University Channel Islands, Camarillo, California
Viva la Vida, Laurel Ventura Gallery, Ventura, California
2008
Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
I-5 Gallery, Los Angeles, California
Erik ReeL and Friends at the Love House, Ventura, California
Galerie 251, Ventura, California
2007
Rainbow Alliance Show, Rainbow Alliance LGBTQ+ Support Network, Ventura, California
Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2006
Picasso, Chagall, and Contemporary Master Prints, Modern Masters Gallery, Palm Desert, California
Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
Elizabeth Edwards Gallery, Palm Desert, California
2005
Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
Elizabeth Edwards Gallery, Palm Desert, California
2004
71st SAGA Annual Print Show, Society of American Graphic Artists [SAGA], New York City
17th Parkside National Print Exhibition, University of Wisconsin
Works on Paper, curated: Matthew Pruit, Menil Sr Curator, McNeese State University, Louisiana
7th Annual National, Montpelier Center for the Arts, Montpelier, Virginia
24th National Print Exhibition, ArtLink Contemporary, Fort Wayne, Indiana
14th Annual International, Las Vegas Center for Art and Design, Las Vegas, New Mexico
Landscape Unlimited, International survey of abstract landscape, Chicago, Illinois
Caruso Woods Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2003
Lisa Kurts Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee
Linda Moore Gallery, San Diego, California
Penumbral/Palindrome, scrim, Signal+Noise, Media Arts & Technology, Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE), UCSB
Elizabeth Edwards Gallery, Palm Desert, California
2002
Lisa Kurts Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee
Delphine Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
Contemporary Art Forum Santa Barbara, California
2001
Contemporary Art Forum, Santa Barbara, California
Delphine Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2000
Artists For World Peace, Pavilion for World Peace, Kobe, Japan
Contemporary Art Forum, Santa Barbara, California
Delphine Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
Karpeles Museum and Manuscript Library, Santa Barbara, California
1999
Delphine Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
1986
Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle , Washington
1985
New York, LA, Seattle, Center on Contemporary Art (COCA), Seattle, Los Angeles, New York
Seattle Art Museum, curated: Gene Barto, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Seattle, Washington
Jackson Street Gallery, Seattle, Washington
1984
City of Seattle Collects, curated: Howard Fox, senior curator LACMA, Seattle Art Museum Pavilion
Performance, Cornish Institute of Allied Arts, Seattle, Washington
Burning Angels, performance with dancers, Virginia Street Studio, Seattle, Washington
Jackson Street Gallery, Seattle, Washington
1983
Jackson Street Gallery, Seattle, Washington
Performance with Stuart Dempster, Kathleen Hunt, Polly Friedlander Gallery, Seattle, Washington
1980
Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, Washington
1979
William Traver Gallery, Seattle, Washington
Kodak International, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC
1978
6500 x 20,, and/or, Seattle, Washington
Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Washington
Nacreous Passion, performance choreographed by K. Hunt, Washington Hall, Seattle, Washington
1977
Flux Fest, curated: George Maciunas, and/or, Seattle, Washington
1976
Tenth National Drawing Show, curated: Wayne Thiebaud, Del Mar Museum, Corpus Christie, Texas
Education
1980-82 University of Washington, graduate study in art history, critical theory
1975 BA summa cum laude, University of Washington, Seattle
1974 University of California, Berkeley
1971-73 Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington
Collections
Represented in private collections based in Barcelona, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Houston, Indianapolis, London, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Montreal, New York City, Oakland, Paris, San Francisco, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Fe [NM], Seattle, and Seoul. Public collections include the Morris Graves Museum of Art, Seattle City Light, City of Seattle, Czong Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Ventura County, Whitman College.
Teaching
Color Theory for Professionals, Pioneer Square Art Education Foundation, Seattle 1981-1984
University of Washington, Seattle, art history as graduate student TA 1980
Seattle Central College, color theory, painting, life drawing, art history, design 1978-1983
Fort Worden Gifted High School Program, Pt. Townsend, Washington 1978, 1979
Public Service
Governor's Award for Public Service, Washington State, 1985
Seattle Arts Commission Special Task Force on Media 1977
Seattle Arts Commission Special Task Force on Educational Institutions 1977
Selected Talks
[for repeated public talks, only first instance and venue given]
Neither Supernatural Nor Mechanical, Artists Talk/interview, Whitman College, 2021.
Full Circle: NW School, with Jae Carlsson, Morris Graves Museum of Art, 2016
From Fluxus to Rebar, Artists Talk, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California, 2014.
Lecture for solo exhibition at Whatcom County Museum, Bellingham, Washington, 1986
Panel on contemporary painting, Whatcom County Museum, Bellingham, Washington, 1986.
Symposium on Visual Art and Media: Politics and Critique. Seattle Media Library, 1985.
Critics Symposium on Painting, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, 1985.
Titian to Clemente: Transformations in the Painterly Tradition, Cornish Institute of the Arts, 1984.
The Rebirth of Painting. Public lecture, Seattle Art Museum, 1984.
Transavantguardism: Wolfgang Max Faust vs. Germano Celant, Seattle Public Library, 1984.
The Berlin Wall, Urban Graffiti, and the New Painting, Seattle Pacific University, 1984.
Sources in My Work, public lecture, Cornish Institute for the Arts, Seattle, 1984.
Painting Today, Public lecture, Cornish Institute for the Arts, Seattle, 1984.
Painterly Painting, Again, Public lecture, Seattle Art Museum, 1984.
Late Painting: Picasso, Matisse, de Chirico, Chagall, et alia, Seattle Art Museum, 1983.
Late de Chirico and the Next Italian Generation:, Public lecture, Seattle Central College, 1983.
Teaching Color Theory: Preparing for a Digital World, Lecture series, Seattle Public Library, 1983.
Teaching Color Theory: Preparing for a Digital World, Lectures, Seattle Central College, 1983.
The Bauhaus Color Tradition Today: Itten, Klee, Albers, Dahn, ReeL, Seattle Central College, 1982.
Color Theory: Gerrittsen Schema, Constancies, Color Effects, Seattle Central College, 1981.
Itten was Wrong:: Objective Criterion for Temperature Contrast, Seattle Central College, 1981.
Fluxus Flumoxed, commemorating George Maciunas, Seattle Masonic Hall, 1980.
Color Theory: Preparing Visual Artists for the Computer Age. Seattle Public Library, 1980.
Color Theory Today: Why Classical Mixing Theories Do Not Work, Seattle Public Library, 1980.
Color: Gerrittsen Schema, Digital Representations, Seattle Central College, 1980.
Color : A Comprehensive Conceptual Scheme for Artists, Seattle Public Library, 1980.
Visual Constancies in Color Theory for Artists, Seattle Central College, 1980.
Edwin Land's Impacts on Color Theory: What Artists Should Know, Seattle Central College, 1980.
Cafe Apocalypse: Performance Art Today, Evergreen State College, 1979.
Performance Art Today: Sources and Contexts, Washington Hall, Seattle, 1979.
Writing About Erik ReeL
Catalogs and Monographs
Kinoshita, Alexis and Moen, Grace, Erik ReeL 20 20, FAFA, 2020
Erik ReeL: Full Circle. Exhibition catalog, Morris Graves Museum of Art, 2016
Carlsson, Jae. Tabula Rasa. Exhibition catalog, 2013
Erik ReeL: From the Private Collection. Catalog. Centaur: 2013
Arconi, Nikki. Erik ReeL Painting Catalog: 1250 -1456. Centaur: 2011
Erik ReeL: Painting: Catalog 1352 – 1401. Centaur: 2010
Erik ReeL: Works on Paper. Centaur: 2009
Erik ReeL: Paintings. Centaur: 2009
Chaos. Exhibition catalog, 2009
Quantum Dynamics of Painting. exhibition catalog, 2008
Erik ReeL: paintings and drawings. 110 plates, Centaur: 2008
Erik ReeL. Face to Face. New World: 2008
17th Annual McNeese National Works on Paper. Exhibition catalog, 2004
17th Parkside National Small Print Exhibition. Exhibition catalog. Wisconsin: 2004
Interviews
Joseph Gallivan, Axios, Art Snacks: Erik ReeL's "Street," February 2024
Ruins of Runes, Erik ReeL text of Sean Riehl video, May 2014
Interview with Erik ReeL, june 2013 Society805.com
Interview with Erik ReeL, January 2013 KAQB
Video
The Visual Language of Erik ReeL, Sean Riehl, 2014, documentary
Epiphany: Erik ReeL and Diane Silver, Eric Minh Swenson, 2017
Objects of Impossibility, Nathan Vonk, 2017, KGTV
Sources
Nathan Vonk, Exciting Work at Museum of Contemporary Art, February 2015
Ruins of Runes, Erik ReeL text of Sean Riehl video, May 2014,
Nelson Jesson, Semiotic Abstraction, November 2013
Christian Reed, Oh, Those Pesky Tag Memes, February 2013
Ben Chinay, Signs of a Lost Civilization, December 2011
Nikki Arconi, Erik ReeL: Markings, catalog essay, November 2011
Erik ReeL 2172, Tutustu kiinnostaviin ideoihin! Pansemia/Asemia sources website
Selected Press
Joseph Gallivan, Axios, Art Snacks: Erik ReeL's "Street," February 2024
Kit Boise-Cossart, Erik ReeL, GraySpace Santa Barbara, November 2018
Leslie Dinaberg, Erik ReeL: Zero Point & Rhonda P. Hill: Blurred Boundaries: Fashion as an Art, September 2018
Erik ReeL at the Butler Institute of American Art, July 2018
Leslie Westbrook, Welcome to Planet ReeL, Ventana Magazin, October 2017
Erik ReeL and Diane Silver, 13 July 2017
Nathan Vonk, Exciting Work at Museum of Contemporary Art, February 2015
Nathan Vonk Review: Out of the Great Wide Open, February 2015
ReeL Grand Slam, November 2014
Society805.com, VAM Improvisational Painting, 7 July 2014
Nash Rightmer & Erik ReeL’s Standing in Boots, May 2014
Nelson Jesson, Semiotic Abstraction, November 2013
Tracy Hudak, A Painter With a View, April 2013
Christian Reed, Oh, Those Pesky Tag Memes, February 2013
Nathan Vonk, How Soon is Now?, June 2012
Ted Mills, In the Abstract Bedroom, June 2012
Ben Chinay, Signs of a Lost Civilization, December 2011
Nicole D’Amore. Faces are Archeteypes, August 2008
Ashley Olive. Erik ReeL at FrameWorks, Otober 2008
Joseph Woodard. Joie de Vivre, 28 August 2004
Charles Donelan. The Riviera American-style, 18 September 2003
Sarah McIver, ReeL Irrational Exuberance, 12 May 2003
Anita Farina, ReeL’s Bagdad Hotel, 17 August 2003
David Jensen, Arte Tropicana and the ReeL Thing, 10 June 2003
Annette Sorel, ReeL Splash of Color, 5 May 2002
Joseph Woodard, Pools and Lines, 2 May 2002
Delores Tarzan, ReeL at Cornish Institute, Seattle Times, 15 October 1984
Regina Hackett, Seattle P-I, 21 January 1981
Barbara Earl Thomas, ReeL Splash of Color, Highline Times, 10 June 1977
Related Articles
Kaya Noteboom, Erik ReeL: The Art of Kenosis, paper, PNCA graduate program, October 2023
Jae Carlsson, Erik ReeL, Tabula Rasa catalog, April 2013
Raphael Rubinstein, Provisional Painting Part 2: To Rest Lightly on Earth, February 2012
Nikki Arconi, Erik ReeL: Markings, catalog essay, November 2011
Raphael Rubinstein, Provisional Painting, May 2009
Selected Writing by Erik ReeL
Books
Pterodactyl Cries: Art, Abstraction, Apocalypse, 2021
Articles About Visual Art
Matisse in Long Beach, August 2018
Mark Bradford at Hauser & Wirth, May 2018
Yumiko Glover: Pushing the Button 2058 Times, May 2018
Chagall: Fantasies on Stage at LACMA, 13 November 2017
Jimmie Durham: Art at the Center of the World, 11 April 2017
Jean Dubuffet Drawings at the Hammer, 10 April 2017
Moholy-Nagy at LACMA, 31 March 2017
Henry Taylor at Blum & Poe, December 2016
Agnes Martin at LACMA, 21 June 2016
Mara De Luca at Luis de Jesus, 7 June 2016
Letter From the Front, Face to Face, catalog, August 2008
Michael Spafford at the Seattle Art Museum, Vanguard, v. 11, no, 4, May 1982, pp. 34-35
Articles On Theater
Bakersfield Mist, 14 may 2018
Sgt. Pepper at 50; Mark Morris at Eternity, 14 may 2018
Baby Tangle, 14 may 2018
American Buffalo, 20 april 2018
Macbeth in Ojai, 20 april 2018
Lear, 27 mar 2018
Wrongs of the Righteous, 12 feb 2018
This Random World, 12 feb 2018
Perlmutter’s Directing Hamlet, 12 nov 2017
Taking Sides, 13 nov 2017
Flying H Does Blackbird, 16 oct 2017
Dance: Anaїs by Mixed eMotion Theatrix, 25 sept 2017
Incognito, 22 sept 2017
Becky’s New Car, 6 sept 2017
Steel Magnolias at the Elite, 4 sept 2017
McPherson’s Birds, 1 july 2017
When We Were Young and Unafraid, 9 jun 2017
Milo’s Other Mozart, 5 jun 2017
Beached, 26 april 2017
To Woo is to Win, 25 april 2017
Agnes of God, 6 mar 2017
Devil’s Music that Feeds the Soul, 3 mar 2017
Driving Home: Rubicon Concludes Nibroc Trilogy, 7 feb 2017
Jason Furlani’s Family Trees, 6 dec 2016
Chapter Two at ETC, 5 dec 2016
Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, 17 oct 2016
Night Alive, 24 sept 2016
This Isn’t Kansas, Yet, Is It?, 23 july 2016
Open Meeting Closed, 15 july 2016
Oh, How Lovely Do Angels Fall, 15 jJune 2016
What Kind of Sticks?, 10 june 2016
The Pillowman, 19 may 2016
David Hare’s Skylight, 18 may 2016
Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles at SPTC, 23 april 2016
Uncanny Valley, 24 mar 2016
Taking Liberty, 7 mar 2016
That Other Place, 16 feb 2016
See Rock City, 2 feb 2016
FUBAR at Flying H, 25 jan 2016
Copenhagen, 16 sept 2015
Acting Rules at Flying H and Elite: Small Engine Repair and Zero Hour, 19 oct 2015
Into the Jaws of History, 13 Sep 2015
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad ... Living Room, 5 Sep 2015
Twisted Trouble, 18 jul 2015
Other Desert Cities, 3 jun 2015
Roger That, 31 may 2015
Regional Art News
Joe Cardella 1945-2018, may 2018
Vonder Gray at WAV, 9 feb 2018
The Art Market 2017, 12 jan 2018
Bob Privett at the Ventura County Museum, 6 june 2017
Assembling Assemblage, 17 may 2017
Museum Mishandles Asian Pacific Exhibition, 27 jun 2016
A World Down the Street, 24 may 2016
Flying H Theatre Announces New Plays, 15 feb 2016
New Executive Director for the Museum of Ventura County, 18 april 2013
Pistol Productions: Firing Away, 1 oct 2012
Is the 805 Ready for a Regional Arts Council?, 9 feb 2012
Putting It All Together: Tracy Hudak, 3 feb 2012
Arts Candidates Sweep Ventura City Council Elections, 18 nov 2011
Irving Foundation Grants for the 805, 28 oct 2011
Ventura Wins National Arts Destination Award, 25 jul 2011
Other Publications
In the late 1970s and early 1980s ReeL wrote on art and performance for a variety of publications including Vanguard, ArtExpress, High Performance art magazines, Artweek, and/or Notes, weekly reviews and a weekly column on the arts for the daily newspaper in east Seattle, the Bellevue Journal-American, was arts editor and writer for the Seattle Voice monthly glossy city magazine, and collaborated with art critic Jae Carlsson [ArtDish, ArtForum, ArtsWatch] on a number of zines on language and critical theory in the pre-internet era. None of this writing, except a review of Michael Spafford in Vanguard is listed above. ReeL is currently an occasional contributor to Oregon ArtsWatch and various international platforms.
"ReeL's technique exhibits a high degree of transparency, layering, sfgraffito and graffitto, with a strong sense of hand, the hand-made, and an absence of any references to the material world. This work can be seen as a thorough-going critique of materialism, the machine or machine-made, and the triumph of feeling over the manufactured. For ReeL, marking is a defining characteristic of the human and the primordial act of signification and meaning for human consciousness." – Nikki Arconi, 2010
ReeL contends that with the rise of graphically interfaced computers and the ever-increasing involvement of more and more humans with screens in their daily lives, the cognitive processing of two dimensional surfaces is central to civilized human experience and thus a focus of his visual art. Further, central to ReeL's work is an exploration of human marking on a surface, since for ReeL, “marking is a defining characteristic of the human and the primordial act of signification and meaning for human consciousness.”
Born in Seattle in 1952, Erik ReeL attended Whitman College majoring in mathematics, the University of California, at Berkeley, and the University of Washington majoring in art history and studio art, graduating summa cum laude in 1975. ReeL studied art history with Rainer Crone, painting with Jacob Lawrence, Michael Spafford, Bob Jones, and Michael Dailey, color with Richard Dahn [a student of Albers at Yale], sumi-e with George Tsutakawa, and, independently, Chinese brush with Hsai Chen.
In the late 1970s Reel wrote for Vanguard, ArtExpress, and High Performance art magazines, Artweek, and/or Notes, did weekly reviews and a column for the Bellevue Journal-America daily newspaper, and was the arts editor for the Seattle Voice city magazine. During this time he sat on two Seattle Arts Commission Special Task Forces: Media and Educational Institutions for the Arts. Reel was involved in performance art as well as writing and painting, performing in pieces at the Seattle Art Museum, Cornish School for Allied Arts, Washington Hall, Poetry Seattle, Salon Apocalypse, and several art galleries, usually collaborating with musicians and dancers, while exhibiting regularly with the original Jackson Street Gallery located upstairs at 123 Jackson Street. ReeL taught art history, color theory, and life drawing for five years at what is now Seattle Central College.
Leaving Seattle in 1984, ReeL essentially dropped out of society for a decade, for the most part not exhibiting or publishing during this time with the notable exception of a solo show of drawing at Seattle's Mazey Hickey Gallery in 1987.
ReeL’s painting has alternated between phases of figurative and abstract imagery, for the most part ignoring the distinction between drawing and painting. In 2009 ReeL stripped all references to the material world from his work as a critique of the hyper-materialism that he felt pervades contemporary society. In a presentation at the Morris Graves Museum of Art, Portland-based art critic, Jae Carlsson [Art Dish, ArtForum] pointed out ReeL’s visual and philosophical connections to earlier Pacific Northwest painters such as Morris Graves and Mark Tobey [ReeL also studied sumi-e under George Tsutakawa and knew Kenneth Callahan], while at the same time indicating that ReeL had pushed his work beyond any Postmodernist regime.
In 2017, the following statement was published by a California gallery regarding ReeL’s work:
"Like an archaeologist uncovering the remnants of written language ReeL creates meaning from, not just what is visible, but in what has been obscured. To understand ReeL’s work one must look at his attraction to such seemingly incongruent influences as erased whiteboards, blizzards, improvisational music, and abandoned industrial sites. His work celebrates the meaning in remnants, the hidden, the random and destroyed."
In 2019 ReeL returned to the Pacific Northwest, relocating to Portland, Oregon, where he currently maintains his studio and lives with his wife, Rhonda P. Hill.
In Portland ReeL initiated a series of three exhibitions designed to reintroduce his work to the Pacific Northwest: [1] an exhibition at PLACE in Portland in 2023 showing transitional work completed during the COVID pandemic and lockdown; [2] as a guest exhibitor at the Laura Vincent Gallery in Portland in 2024 a survey of work completed in the decade prior to arriving in Portland [2009-2019] of pre-Pandemic work, and [3] an exhibition in the Spring semester of 2025 at Whitman College in Washington showing current work along with an exhibition curated by Rhonda P. Hill, his wife.
ReeL's art is collected on five continents and represented in private collections based in Buenos Aires, Berlin, Chicago, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Houston, Indianapolis, London, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, Oakland, Paris, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Santa Fe [NM], Seattle, and Seoul. Public collections include the permanent collections of the Morris Graves Museum of Art, Seattle City Light, City of Seattle, Czong Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of Ventura County, and Whitman College.
My work has followed a life-long pattern of exploring aspects of how human consciousness processes visual stimuli, or what is often called cognitive processing, especially when involving two-dimensional information. Early on, this was based on a study of color theory, visual ambiguities, and the visual constancies involved in how the human brain processes information on a two-dimensional surface. It is my contention that with the rise of graphically interfaced personal computers and the ever-increasing involvement of more and more humans with flat screens in their daily lives, that an understanding and deeper awareness of how two-dimensional cognitive processing operates and works is central to civilized human experience and should be a focus of my visual art. Further, my work is intimately bound up with an exploration of human marking on a surface, without machine or mechanical assistance; I feel such marking is a defining characteristic of the human and the primordial act of signification and meaning for human consciousness.
My work has been influenced by micro- and nano-photography, poorly erased whiteboards, sidewalks, ruins, abandoned industrial sites, ancient stone surfaces, fire, sand, sea and ice, charcoal, hieroglyphs, esoteric texts, Hubble Ultra-Deep Field photographs, foundries, wars, concrete, pubic hair, cytoplasm, craters, wood, photographs of things we cannot see with the naked eye in real time, paintings, railroad box-car markings, Skandinavian runes, blizzards, scratched surfaces, improvisational music, typography, the human voice, the night sky, the inside of an eyeball, the surface of other planets, scars, deserts, scorched earth, and the accidental, which is not really indeterminate, but the result of subtler action on a deeper plane of consciousness.
I have been particularly inspired by improvisational music: Vijay Ayer, Miles Davis, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Theolonus Monk, Dewey Redman, Flamenco, Jamaican Freestyle, Imrat Khan and the improvisational traditions of the Indian subcontinent.
As for early influences, growing up in Seattle my visual starting point for painting was Mark Tobey’s White Writing paintings. Other influences included Pacific Northwest Scandinavian textile, architectural, and design traditions, which tend to be highly abstract. Later, it was Klee and Miro: In terms of color theory there is a direct lineage from Itten and Klee to Albers to Dahn to myself. At university, influences also came from Michael Spafford and the Black Mountain school via Jacob Lawrence and Robert Jones, then slightly later, Cy Twombly via his exhibitions in the 1970s.
I have found my researches into human mark making capable of sensitizing people to the subtleties of their own internal cognitive processing in ways that are not easy to verbalize, but are clearly perceived by those who look sufficiently long enough to fully experience the paintings directly. This is a process bound by specific cognitive constraints that take a certain amount of time. A glance is insufficient.
Erik ReeL
Photo credits:
photo 1: Erik ReeL in his studio with collector, sociologist, documentary filmmaker, and feminist scholar, France Winddance Twine, 2018. Photo: Rhonda P. Hill.
photo 2: Independent curator Kathy Rae Huffman and Erik ReeL, Villa Aurora Library, Santa Monica, California, 2014, photo: Rhonda P. Hill
photo 3: Erik ReeL at Front Street Studio, Ventura, California Studio, 2016, photo: Skye Bennike
photo 4: Laurie Kirby and Boom Duo [John Lacques and Noah Thomas] at ReeL's Front Street Studio, 2015, photo: Rhonda P. Hill
photo 5: Erik ReeL, Portland, Oregon, 2020, photo: Erik ReeL.
This photo is a public commons photo, available to use without permission in conjunction with any publication regarding Erik ReeL or his art, consistent with fair use under USA copyright law.