Year Created: July 2020
Materials Used: Acrylic Paint on corrugate & toilet paper rolls, mounted on canvas.
Size of Original Artwork (Height in Inches x Width in Inches): 48 x 24 inches
Price: $500

Artist Statement for Creative & Unconventional

Covid-19 has presented a watershed moment in the way I shop. I have discovered that I can buy just about anything online and have it conveniently dropped right at my front door. I have a love/hate relationship with this convenience. I confess, the thrill of having anything I need at the mere click of mouse is downright ADDICTIVE. However, every time I receive a delivery, my smug satisfaction is quickly soured with an overwhelming wash of guilt as I unpack my tiny purchase from layer after layer of unnecessary packaging material. (why-oh-why big box store, can you not find an appropriately sized box?)

So, after compiling a mountain of cardboard boxes, it occurred to me one day that they might make an interesting painting surface (ah-ha, could this be a solution to my online shopping guilt?). After some experimentation, I eventually started to combine salvaged corrugate with old orphaned canvases and came up with some interesting results.

Oh yeah – it is also a good thing I stocked up on all that toilet paper – as it turns out, those empty rolls can be used to develop interesting three-dimensional shapes.

Personal Artist Statement:

Some people meditate, some people write, some run, some pray; – for me, it is in the solitude of creative practice that I am genuinely engaged with my inner world.

I love the idea that every painting has a soul – I would interpret that more precisely by speculating that every work is a journey, and that unpredictability is certain. My ego would have you (and me) believe that I start every painting with a grand plan, and that I am a master over my tools and medium. The truth is, I have come to understand that my only role as an artist is to embrace uncertainty. I rarely use reference images when I start a new work – rather, I often gather inspiration from a single starting point – a color, a theme, something I saw while in my garden or out on my evening walk. That single point of inspiration is the seed that grows while I work.

I hope that my works will invite you to pause your intellect in favor of feeling – to become absorbed into rich layers of color, texture, gestural marks, fine details, and the starkly contrasting beauty of emptiness.

Artist Bio

Erica Tagert – Abbotsford BC, painter and photographer. My work is comprised primarily of representational and abstract works inspired by the beauty and abundance of my natural surroundings
in British Columbia.

https://www.facebook.com/ericatagertart/