Erica Hauser is a 2002 graduate of School of Visual Arts in NYC with a BFA in Illustration. She also studied at the Art Students League of NY and Cornell University. She grew up in Brewster, NY and lived in NYC for 7 years before moving up the Hudson River to Beacon in early 2007.
Artist statement:
Painting and drawing are my primary means of distilling my experience of a world both present and past. Certain themes of sense-memory and a vintage aesthetic have emerged, as well as my appreciative observation of the ordinary. Some objects I isolate, to emphasize their form; in other paintings I try to create an environment, real or improvised. I work on site and from photographs I take, and my resonant impressions fill the spaces in between. Every observation’s story can be taken literally or emotionally, depending on one’s personal history or sense of nostalgia.
My attraction to certain subjects can lead me on a wistful, pleasurable hunt. In describing faded colors, textures of rusted metal, peeling paint or a sun-bleached facade, and an earnestness of expression in text or design, I find my own answers for painting what I do. I like the evocative nature of words and images, and I aim to imbue a picture with a sense of stillness and clarity in a way that leaves viewers with their own thoughts.
From a recent article in Chronogram magazine: Article
“Like Frank O’Hara’s observational poems about the small details of life in New York City, Hauser’s paintings celebrate the seemingly ordinary things that often go unnoticed… Though she mostly paints from her own photographs, Hauser’s goal isn’t photorealism. “It’s a holding on to a moment or an experience,” she says. Hauser offers unusual perspectives of ordinary objects through subtle alterations, like cropping a movie marquee to frame a few decontextualized letters over an angular edge, or bleaching out colors to create soft vintage static. Such stylistic choices imbue the early-Americana objects with a dreaminess akin to flashbacks in old movies. Classic Ford trucks and antique gas station pumps are real things, but seem part of an intangible past—one only accessible through memory, or, it seems, one of Hauser’s paintings.”
An exhibition list and other info can be found at www.ericahauser.com

