Eric sherwood 谢鼎成

b. 1991 Knoxville, Tennessee; lives and works in Knoxville, Tennessee

Mixed race (Chinese/American) artist Eric Sherwood studied Chinese brush painting and calligraphy as a child, this led to a love of mark making. Always with a sketchbook at hand, he captured growing up in both the United States and China, he found that though rather undefinable, his job was building bridges. The drawings started as a coping mechanism out of neglect, and deep personal/spiritual isolation, but what he began to find for him was that there was one journey, one single mystery. His process, diy shadow work. Wherein the piece itself begins to speak, that as an artist, the hand is one transmission. Inspired like the surrealists in the occult and esoteric of both was, west, and Jungian visualization. Each piece became divination, to be pondered over, inside unconscious faculties, obtuse and difficult to place. That when mystery speaks, it can often be playful, sometimes terrifying, always insightful. Being schooled in landscape painting of traditional sansui (literally “Mountain Water” of Chinese brush painting where perspective is often pushed and pulled by contradicting elements of both 2D and 3D, Eric makes work that challenges as much as it entices. While working, esoteric concepts emerge, much of the iconography can be compared to a tarot deck or the feelings from great insight. Sometimes abstract, sometimes figurative, the only constant through line being, spiritual exploration and understanding.