Eric Blum’s work consists of two series, the abstract paintings and the portraits. Within the former, thick layers of pigmented wax are imbued with vague shapes, suggestions of celestial skies, organic and biological mysteries. These abstract encaustic paintings seem to implode with a sense of submerged and inaccessible energy. They are tantalizing embodiments of the artist’s interest in the conflict between the actual and the ideal, the desire to possess that which cannot be possessed.

In the Portrait series, layer upon layer of an ethereal beauty is caught within its own delicately transparent epidermis-- a skin which is untouchable and unattainable. The atmospheric quality of Blum’s work, in both the abstract as well as the figurative, evokes a sense of being set apart from one’s most inner longings and fantasies. When viewing his collected portraits of imaginary feminine archetypes, the viewer draws from them personal interpretations stemming from their own dreams and fantasies. Blum is compelled by his fascination with the implosive aspects of desire’s insatiability. His deliberate choice of beeswax permits him the added ability to further infuse an already ambiguous subject with the glow and radiance of depth set within a smooth, fragrant and irrespirable skin.

Eric Blum is a recipient of a Pollack-Krasner Foundation grant, is included in Joanne Mattera’s book, “The Art of Encaustic Painting: Contemporary Expression in the Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax”, and has exhibited widely throughout the United States. Among others, his work has been included in: Kresge Art Museum, MI; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, TN; Knoxville Art Museum, TN; The Contemporary Art Center, OH; Albright-Knox Gallery, NY.