At the Border Between the Official and the Excluded 2016

Erik Sigerud’s painting is a puzzle of watery green marks, punctuated with jolts of red, yellow, and blue. I can imagine him building up the image, layer by layer, shifting between figuration and abstraction, rubbing and reworking. I’m particularly drawn to the turquoise watery ground. It reminds me of seascapes, or maybe an abstract field, but the overall image is of an interior space with a boat, figures, foliage, and a very strange staircase. The tree on the right seems to support a surreal animal head, while the floating lozenge shape on the left hovers over a cage. The colors are murky, but there is a playful quality in the gesture. Looking at this, I’m reminded of other painters like Albert Oehlen, whose work embraces similar levels of chaos and complexity, or maybe even Tal R. Artists are constantly borrowing from one another, responding to the history of painting, while pushing it in new directions.