Art League Houston Exhibition "The Buffalo Hunters" 2007

These are selected works from the upcoming solo exhibition "The Buffalo Hunters" at Art League Houston, November 2 - December 21, 2007

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of "The Buffalo Hunters", with new digital photography by Eric Michael Jones, November 2 - December 21, 2007. The opening reception of The Buffalo Hunters is Friday, November 2, 6-8 p.m., beginning with a talk by the artist.

Eric Michael Jones' digital photographs are inspired by stories - both fairytales and contemporary fiction, such as the work of the Brothers Grimm and Raymond Carter, among others. Some influences in his work are clearly recognizable, while others are not, with the stories used simply as launching points for image making. As in fairy tales, a reoccurring sub-theme runs through the work - an ominously foreboding landscape (the horrible woods, the threatening sea), a place where children go willingly or otherwise, to work out their greatest fears and anxieties. The idea of ambiguity is also an important component in Jones' work: character roles are enigmatic; opposites are juxtaposed (beauty and repulsiveness, innocence and worldliness, compassion and cruelty); and extreme physical trauma is presented as a strength born with grace.

The figures in Eric Michael Jones' digital works are compiled from numerous sources. A single body may have been assembled from six to ten different images. In some cases, the original subjects might be personally staged and photographed, but more often than not are appropriated from popular imagery, such as an arm from a magazine or a hand from a video still. These parts are then scanned and combined to create a seamless figure in the desired position, with the end result a fictional tableau presented as fact.

Eric Michael Jones grew up in Rosenberg, Texas and moved to Houston in 1996, after graduating with a BFA from the University of Texas in 1995. After undergraduate school, he received his Teacher Certification in Fine Art from the University of Houston and St. Thomas University (2001) followed with an MFA in Painting from the University of Houston (2006). As a first year graduate student, Eric began to find the act of painting a bit too predictable. "I would get halfway through a piece, and know exactly what the end result was going to be." He then began collaging onto the canvas a single figurative element cut from a magazine, such as a toe, a hand, or an ear, and from there would paint his figures. In 2003, University of Houston visiting artist Christian Eckart, a well know sculptor who would later teach at UH, suggested to Eric that he scan his imagery into a computer. It was this suggestion that led Jones to abandon painting as a media, and to refocus his creative energy on the path he follows today.