Eric Stotik
Eric Stotik presents small, intimate narratives that raise questions about identity, loss, interconnection and the human condition. Incorporating dreamlike figures and settings that warrant further investigation, Stotik’s paintings probe a darker side of the psyche, aiming for, as the artist says, “insight with a gasp.” Stotik explains that during the last two decades, “My focus on the human form and pathos has not wavered. My intention of presenting viewers with both accusatory and celebratory images with ‘gravity’ is unchanged. The combination of technical skill in draftsmanship, composition, and visual impact, with concurrent themes of human life and death has always been and remain my artistic compass.”
Eric Stotik grew up between Papua, New Guinea and Melbourne, Australia. As an adult, he came to Portland to study art at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, where he graduated in 1985. He won the prestigious Betty Bowen Memorial Award in 1994 and was Artist in Residence at the Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Center for the Graphic Arts, Portland Art Museum in 1997. Most recently, he was named the Regional Arts and Culture Council’s 2011 Fellow in Visual Arts. He has shown his work extensively throughout the Northwest, and his work is included in the collections of: the Hallie Ford Museum at Willamette University, Salem; the Portland Art Museum; the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah; Idaho State University; the New York Public Library; and Yale University.