Eric Aho’s latest body of work features captivating abstract scenes of the natural world. United by a horizontal band at the base of each painting— the surface of a lake, pond, or river—these new works capture the intimate experience of connecting to the sublime within nature.
This work is a portrait of Aho’s time spent outdoors with his wife, Rachel. As Rachel enjoys fishing and wandering along the riverbank, Eric casts his brush across a canvas and wanders in a different way. Absorbed in his work, Aho meditates on the colors and patterns before him. His paintings are gestural impressions of the shades, tones, and textures of the landscape. Aho’s en plein air compositions are smaller in scale compared to his work in the studio. After completing a scene on the water’s edge, Aho uses the same color palette to recreate the study in his studio on a large canvas. These paintings are often life-size, allowing the viewer to stand before the work, become engulfed in the scene, and find a sense of connection to the environment before them. Writer Tim Weed, found this connection to be the most important part of Aho’s paintings: “A vibrating current of electricity dwells just behind everything in nature and the encounter with the painting, like [an] encounter with [a] trout, links you to that current, if only for a fleeting instant. A connection is made between you and something larger. Something important and true."
