ERIDAN

If you are interested in ERIDAN’s work, please email all enquiries to eridanstudioart@gmail.com

About:

Eri and Dan’s creative journeys began at a young age. For both artists, art has been center to their lives since they were children. They say that while other kids grew out of art, they never did. They simply never stopped. Despite their different paths, they independently decided to be life-long makers. Both were formally trained in art; Eri received her MFA in Painting from Hunter College and her BFA in Studio Art and Art History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Daniel received his BA in New Media: Film from Fairfield University and studied Japanese Tea Ceremony at the Uresenke Chanoyu Center of New York.

ERIDAN began their first large-scale time-intensive project in the winter of 2015 with a hand-embroidered plastic shower curtain. They embroidered 12-inch lettering spelling out “Thank You For Shopping with Us!” In many ways, this first project encapsulates the work that the duo have continued to produce. This deep collaboration is at the very heart of ERIDAN’s practice. For Eridan, collaboration is a conceptual medium, one that shapes and informs their art. The artists consider each other to be a ‘mirror’ – a way to reflect and work through concepts back and forth until clarity is found. Their true partnership, artistically, personally and professionally, has allowed the duo to grow and experiment. The collaboration has facilitated fearless experimentation in medium, in subject matter and beyond. Working as a team has also been inspiring for the two, with the artists both crediting each other for providing artistic motivation. In 2017, while in a residency in Japan, the duo authored the manifesto How to Work Better Together (an homage to Fishli & Weiss’ How to Work Better). How to Work Better consists of ten tenants intended to optimize collaboration and, essentially, encapsulates the collaborative ethos of ERIDAN’s studio practice. The document continues to provide a framework for their approach to this day. ERIDAN have worked with various kinds of galleries and institutions over their career, but credit this 2017 residency in Japan as the most influential. They explain that dedicated time and space was crucial to understanding their shared artistic ethos.

ERIDAN work in a variety of mediums ranging from mixed-media sculpture to textiles, drawing and painting to sound and video performance. They engage found, everyday materials in an eclectic manner to not only utilise the symbolic power, but also to express freedom. These everyday materials suggest an ability to create art with anything, and an ability to see art in everything. Past materials have included shower curtains, like in “Thank You For Shopping with Us!”, as well as plastics, food products, and ready-mades from the dollar store or the streets of New York City.

As a medium, drawing is foundational to both artists’ individual practices and has been consistently served as a tool for collaboration in joint-work. An example of this is seen in the series Geometric Studies; where the artists work on two drawings simultaneously, exchanging them back and forth. Geometric Studies investigates the oneness of duality in collaborative practices. According to the artists, it encapsulates a place where authorship and ego depart. Much of ERIDAN’s work is an interplay of improvisational exercises that explore new ideas and embrace change as a constant.

Their work focuses thematically on daily rituals and everyday objects. The Everyday is one of the largest recurring themes across ERIDAN’s work. Specifically, the shared experience of daily rituals is of deep interest. The artists draw on the vast reservoir of the banal, unnoticed and repetitive actions as a way to increase the visibility and perceived value of these overlooked aspects of lived experience.

ERIDAN describe themselves as ‘strong advocates of craft’ and often employ labor intensive hand-made processes as a form of meditation. For instance, they hand embroider snack bags, executing the simple gesture tens of thousands of times for hundreds of hours. The artists acknowledge, and value, the absurdity of caring for something so intensely that many would consider valueless. Amongst the contextual backdrop of New York City, the very epicenter a deeply capitalist society, these actions can border on the absurd. For the artists, the hand-made process is a satisfying strategy to, in their words, ‘combat the machine’. Due to how labor intensive their works are, the artists typically work on several projects simultaneously. Currently Eri and Dan have two hand embroidered snack bags in progress. They are also close to completing two of their largest geometric paintings to date (the artists often work in 2s as a strategy to reference their duality). Eri and Dan were recently invited by Financial Times to create new work for their Global Boardroom galleries and their Climate Edition will open to the public on March 31st, 2021. The artists are also curating an exhibition at The Catskills, a new artist-run space in Tribeca, NYC. Look out for that exhibition come August 2021. They also hope to release a solo album with Voltage Control Records later this year.

Bio:

ERIDAN is a joint venture between Brooklyn-based artists Eri King and Daniel Greer. In 2015 they became a collaborative duo and established a conceptual platform that explores collaboration. They use varied modes of making such as drawing, painting, sculpture, textiles, installation, sound, performance, and video. In 2016, they exhibited their first solo-show at Miranda Kuo Gallery in New York City. The following year, in 2017, they were artists-in-residence at Shiro Oni Studio, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. Since then, the duo has seen incredible and diverse success. In 2018, ERIDAN curated a group exhibition Pardon Our Appearance at As of Now Gallery and beginning in 2019 they expanded their practice to include performances of live improvisational music. In 2020, they collaborated with Daniel McKemie, an experimental composer, to release a collection of improvisational electronic music recordings under the moniker, Research. Eri and Dan currently live and work in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.