Eric Stotik
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One dreamlike work depicts three women seated at a round table set for a meal, with wine in a few glasses but plates, cups, and saucers empty. One woman holds a baby; behind them a fourth adjusts her hair in a mirror. In the left background, heads seem to be pressing into the room’s shallow space. Eight faces are clearly visible, but only the baby looks unmistakably at another person: it seems that, for Stotik, the adult world is characterized by disconnection. That the background heads are larger than those in the foreground further flattens the space and unsettles an already odd scene: if nothing much is happening, why are all these people trying to get in?
The varied headgear in another painting–a crown, a clown hat, a head wrap–adorning some dozen faces arranged vertically suggests comedy and tragedy masks, especially since some of the eyes have no irises. It seems these faces on display symbolize a variety of almost theatrical emotions. Some subjects look surprised, some sad, and some blank–but no one is happy. Another picture shows part of a globe against a blue background, its surface covered with gnarled shapes suggesting land masses, as if this were a planet covered with islands instead of continents. Though these land forms are painted in precise detail, the differences between them seem superficial, and there’s something vaguely depressing about a planet covered with repetitive shapes offering far less variety than is found on earth.
