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Bio
Erin Drakeford graduated from the University of Georgia in 2003 with a BFA in painting and drawing and studied art and history abroad in Cortona, Italy. Post graduation, she spent years in the service and beauty industries and raising children. In 2018 she began showing her artwork and has had several group and solo exhibitions in Atlanta and surrounding areas. Her paintings and installations are a whirlwind of bright colors on canvas and mixed materials exploring paradox in emotional relationships and the inevitability of chaos. Her largely figurative work is both representational and abstracted, depicting the body wholly and fragmented with a focus on the balance of the in-between.
Her work has been featured in Create! Magazine's women's issue, Candyfloss blog, I Like Your Work magazine, Art Mums United podcast, and WABE City Lights. She has curated multiple group shows at Echo Contemporary, Arts Beacon Gallery, and South River Arts Studios. In addition, she teaches expressive painting classes and workshops at Arts Beacon Studios. Her other artistic endeavors include hosting Art Cult evenings where musicians and artists of all mediums can connect and also running Bell Moon Arts, an artist retreat and collective in the mountains of North Carolina.
Artist Statement
Most days, I will tell you the vibrancy in my work is about positivity and always looking for hope and goodness in the world, but some days it’s about the futility and superficiality of it all. As a mother with two young kids and limited studio time, I am fueled by emotions and a desperate sense of urgency to paint. The pandemic has limited my time even further, and my new work has a frenetic energy that has evolved during these strange and trying days. My work starts from feelings of emotional disturbance; sadness, desolation, anxiety, fear, or anger. I then gain inspiration from the daily abundance of visual and auditory information I encounter, from the preciousness of nature to mass consumerism and the absurdity of the beauty industry. The bright neon colors and gold leaf pay homage to opulence and decadence and a nod to my eighties and early nineties childhood. I have a particular fondness for oddities, atypical aesthetics, and counterculture, leaving my figures and landscapes altered, abstracted, and somewhat grotesque at times. Disorder, abundant color, patterns, and large brushstrokes smearing over the canvas bring me joy.