Matzke Fine Art and Design

Erika Bass

Looking, responding, discovering. Art-making for me is the process of creating a visual tapestry of relationships between color, shape, texture and movement. I explore organic forms, piecing them together to build patterns and connections. I am interested in using floral forms layered together to create a sense of community within my compositions. My paintings are inspired by my Seattle coastal environment, with its ever-blooming gardens and natural sea forms. 
The work is hand-printed from both linoleum and paper collagraph plates onto rag paper. I build layers of colors with inked images, finishing them with gouache and acrylic paint.

Erika Bass – Artist Statement

I create colorful collagraph paintings full of animated organic forms. Living and working in the Pacific Northwest, I am inspired by the nature that surrounds me—twisting magnolia branches, exploding hydrangea blossoms, decaying maple leaves, ribbons of kelp—they all inform the imagery in my work. I reinterpret their shapes, repeating and overlapping them to construct interrelated communities of forms and movements that reflect the dynamics of this region.

The process of creating my mixed media paintings is both intuitive and responsive. I begin by cutting and gluing a variety of cardboard shapes, which I print onto rag paper to create a compositional foundation. From there, I develop each piece through layered applications of gouache, acrylic and colored pencil, allowing the forms to emerge and connect organically. Each element contributes to a larger cohesive movement and rhythm, where the negative and positive spaces activate one another, creating a sense of balance.

I teach art at Forest Ridge School in Bellevue, as well as adult workshops in my own studio, The Orange Door Studio in West Seattle. I have been a teaching artist in the Seattle area for decades and love the balance between teaching and my solo studio work. I find that each role continually informs and enriches the other. 

Education: MFA Cranbrook Academy of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Earlham College

 My mixed-media paintings explore the interconnectedness of the natural world. I am interested in how forms relate to one another through their patterns, colors and movement.