Eric Sall

The Newark Arts Council is pleased to announce the opening of Red Badge of Courage, on Sunday, October 28th when it will present new work by 66 artists from New Jersey, New York and abroad in a 13,000 square foot space in downtown Newark .

Curated by Omar Lopez-Chahoud, the exhibition is based on the life and work of 19th century writer/poet/journalist Stephen Crane, a native of Newark. Although he died young, at age 28, Crane's work and life have inspired many artists throughout the years: His portrait was used by the Beatles on the cover of their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The 2001 film The Dark Riders was based on a Crane poem. And there have been a number of film versions of The Red Badge of Courage, the most famous of which was directed by John Huston and released in 1951. The Red Badge of Courage tells the story of a young man's life as a soldier during the American Civil War.

LIGHT POLLUTION: ERIC SALL
AUGUST 23 – SEPTEMBER 24, 2006

Greencastle, IN, August 2006 — Light Pollution: Eric Sall features the large-scale, non-representational paintings of Eric Sall. The exhibition will be on view at the Richard E. Peeler Art Center at DePauw University from August 23 through September 24, 2006.

Drawing from the history of art and painting's lexicon of marks, Eric Sall creates large-scale, non-representational paintings that allude to figuration while remaining immersed in the abstract nature of paint. By adopting the strategy of presenting a figure – or protagonist – over an ambiguously rendered background, Sall alludes to the tradition of representational painting without depicting any discernable forms.

Characterized by a sense of visual gravity in which gestural marks, flat shapes, impastoed dollops, and textured washes coalesce into clustered forms on the surface of the canvas, Sall's paintings engage free association and instinct. Sall's work is informed by personal as much as it is by experience the history of art - drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources including magazine advertisements, film, commercial logos, and events from his youth. As he states, his paintings can be influenced by "a memory of the Northern Lights at 3:00 a.m. on a secluded dirt road in the middle of South Dakota to an image of a brand name jacket in a magazine that I desired. It is just as likely that I would associate graphic marks to designer logos as I would associate a washy field of color to a Midwest sky." Despite their seemingly schizophrenic nature, his divergent interests are processed and played out with cohesion and savvy in his paintings.

Eric Sall is a recent graduate of Viginia Commonwealth University's prestigious painting program. His work has been exhibited at ATM Gallery, NYC; Alona Kagan Gallery, NYC; ADA Gallery, Richmond, VA; Dolphin Gallery, Kansas City, MO; Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City, MO; and the Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM. He is the recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship Program Award, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant Program Award and a Charlotte Street Fund Award. His work is in the collections of the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO; the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; and the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell, NM.

This exhibition may be visited through September 24, 2006, and is free and open to the public.