Erin Marie Dunn: Being Alive

For Immediate Release

October 13, 2007 - November 10, 2007

opening reception: October 13, 6-9pm

Erin Dunn, a recent graduate from RISD, will premier her first solo show in Los Angeles at the Carl Berg Gallery in an exhibition titled “Being Alive.” The show will feature large mixed media drawings whose subject matter is culled from the artist’s own vivid imagination. Worlds within worlds exist in Dunn's narratives that are expressed through the dense layering of a multitude of techniques and materials.

Dunn first exhibited in Los Angeles in the summer of 2006 in a highly successful group exhibition at the Carl Berg Gallery titled “Debut.” In "Debut" she featured a fantastical 17-foot drawing titled “Transition Period Orange” which was one of the highlights of the exhibition. In November of that same year Dunn started a 2-1/2 month residency in city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where she created a video project titled “Discovery of the Sprite.” This short stop-action animation was based on her own fanciful tale using drawings and a self-made musical score. Subsequently this video was featured at Carl Berg Projects in Amsterdam in 2007 and later that same year shown at Art Rotterdam, an international art fair.

Dutch curator Theo Tegelaers took notice of her work in Amsterdam and invited her to show in an exhibition he co-curated at the prestigious non-profit space in Amsterdam, W139, which opened earlier this month. The W139 exhibition includes artists from Europe and the United States including Jonas Ohlsson, Gil & Moti, Joel Tauber, Erin Dunn, Ulrike Möntmann, Arno Coenen, Saskia Jansen and George Korsmit. While there, she gained the interest of the director of W139, Gijs Frieling, whom invited her to participate in a two-person exhibit there next year.

Dunn's imaginative narratives in both drawing and video have caught the eye of an international audience. Her stories are poetic and offbeat and inspire the viewer to look deeper through the layers of the imagery finding a rare genuine quality often lost in work that is more media driven.

Dunn will feature three large drawings in her L.A. solo debut. These works are packed with visually dense drawing and mixed with a multitude of media that is applied to a velvety paper. The paper and the rich variety of materials she uses creates a wonderfully rich and somewhat psychedelic artwork that draws the viewer in with an open mind, drawing on the viewer's own imagination to complete the story.

For further question please contact Carl Berg
Tel: 323-931-6060