At her present exhibition Soft Touch on the Deckle, the artist observes her relationship with the process of graphic art, including the body of the artist and the lithographic stone. While comparing body and its surface to the one of the lithographic stone, one is looking for the parallels and contradictions. And while attributing the litographic stone the ability to memorize just like human skin, Erikson studies her personal artwork as a dialogue between two bodies – the one of the artist and the one of the lithographic stone. The contact between the two bodies results into new forms of co-existence and non-hierarchical ways of communication of the bodies through the similarities and differences.
The surface of lithographic stone is smooth and porous. It is just like skin and when it is touched this will be recorded and stratified in time. Lithography ink as a drawing tool is in the center of Erikson’s artistic practice. When the ink dries on the surface of lithography stone, an abstract landscape reminding of an assembly of networks emerges – which is a simultaneous expression of the geological processes of a rock as well as the chain of touches between the material and the artist. Soft Touch on the Deckle is a three-part exhibition project – the first part is being exhibited here in Draakon gallery, the second one will be exposed in Ratamo gallery, Jyväskylä in March 2023 and the third part will be held in Museum of Lithography in Sweden in April 2023.
Materiality and process are in the centre of Maria Erikson‘s artistic practice. The artist is intrigued by the spaces and interspaces that emerge when various materials and printing surfaces meet. In new combinations of spatial installations and materials, Erikson observes the stratification of these relations, the flow of change in time and interconnectedness. Maria Erikson has completed the two-year study of lithographic printing technology in Tamarind Institute (USA) and obtained MA degree in the department of graphic art at the Academy of Fine Arts/Uniarts Helsinki (Finland). In 2019, Maria Erikson received Eduard Viiralt grant and in 2021 she was awarded Ann-Margret Lindell Grant for Printmaking (Sweden). Among her recent personal exhibitions are Notes about the borderspace (ARS Project Space, 2022); Taidegrafiikan tapa olla – materiality, collaboration and agency (Exhibition Laboratory, Helsinki, 2021); Grafik (Gallery Sander, Norrköping, Sweden, 2021).
Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
The artist expresses her gratitude to: Liina Siib, Paul Rannik, department of graphic art at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Exhibitions in Draakon gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.
