Paper artist Eric Standley is a professor of studio art at Virginia Tech. He received his bachelor of fine arts from the Massachusetts College of Art, and his master of fine arts from Savannah College of Art and Design. Eric is represented by Dinner Gallery of New York City, the Marta Hewett Gallery of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Media Force of Tokyo, Japan.
He has exhibited in over 130 museums and galleries around the world. His artworks are a part of the permanent collections of the Palace of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; the Scherenschnitte Museum, Vreden, Germany; and the Zupi Collection, São Paulo, Brazil.
Standley explains, “Shifting paper’s function from a 2D platform for information to a seemingly impractical building material for cut 3D compositions is not an act of rebellion, but more an accurate reflection of my tendency to over-complicate things. Likewise, the efficiencies gained from the tools I use in the studio are exchanged for an obsessive method of conceptualizing with overt intentionality. I cut paper using a laser to create dimensional-crossing layered compositions. Thousands of details for each layer are drawn with a gaming mouse using CAD software the same way key-frame animations are created, only instead of time, I am negotiating space. The compositions I create are informed by pattern-based interpretations of the intricacy, fragility, and vulnerability shared across all forms. Translating these patterns into tangible objects without specific cultural or illusive familiarity is a compulsion toward transcendental otherworldliness.”
Eric Standley’s exhibition “Ungrounded” was on display in William King Museum of Art’s United Company Contemporary Regional Gallery from February 22, 2024, to June 23, 2024.
To see more of Standley’s work, check out his website at www.eric-standley.com.
