ERIK THOR SANDBERG: Bramble
CONNERSMITH is pleased to offer a select view of Erik Thor Sandberg’s “Bramble” (2024).
This final work in his most recent cycle of paintings exemplifies the artist’s acclaimed Surrealist expression of contemporary humanism. Sandberg sets forth a vivid allegory of our relationships to one another and nature in “Bramble” with multiple human and animal figures who coexist in their own world.
Grounded in cohering elements of earth, trees and grass, the jumble of interwoven figures - five humans, a fox, a rabbit, a monkey and a crocodile - appears to revolve in empty space. In their actions and gestures Sandberg conceptualizes dynamics among members of a household, community, or society which function as a singular organism. The characters, at odds with their circumstances, move in disparate directions, either struggling to stop, or redirect, the revolving construct, or attempting to destroy the barriers that separate them.
Erik Thor Sandberg (b. 1973, Quantico, VA) lives and works in Washington, DC. Sandberg is known for skillful Surrealist paintings of the human figure and landscape. Creating inventive imagery ranging from panoramic to intimate, Sandberg pushes the illusionism of Old Master painting to the contemporary edge of Surrealism. His work has been exhibited at public and private venues internationally; Sandberg's paintings are also included in numerous international private collections.