Eric Nash Describes Jean-Michel Basquiat

01/25/23 • 23 min

Eric Nash is a California artist working in oil and charcoal. His subject matter focuses on icons and scenes inspired by Los Angeles and the California desert. His highly realistic images are pared down to their idealized essence often conveying a film still or a memory. He works in series, some of which go back decades.

Eric is a lifelong artist who began with community sponsored art classes at age 5. He went on to receive a BFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a talented student tuition waiver. He is represented by art galleries in Los Angeles and Palm Springs where he has had numerous solo shows over the years. His work is in collections internationally including well-known Hollywood names, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and corporations such as Delta Airlines.

He has been the subject of numerous media articles and his work has been collected or featured at The Hilbert Museum of California Art, Tucson Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, Riverside Art Museum and Palm Springs Art Museum. He currently lives and works in the high desert town of Yucca Valley, CA near Joshua Tree National Park.

The painting he describes is:

Jean Michel Basquiat (American, 1960–1988)
Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump
1982
Oil on canvas
96” x 164”
Art Institute of Chicago
Gift of Ken Griffin

The painting he describes is:

Jean Michel Basquiat (American, 1960–1988)
Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump
1982
Oil on canvas
96” x 164”
Art Institute of Chicago
Gift of Ken Griffin

Previous Episode

Dispatch from RISE/SET with Matt Wessen

Matt Wessen (born in Los Angeles in 1982) is a photographer, filmmaker, and art director currently based in Ojai, California. In his current Compound YV exhibition, Rise/Set, Wessen captures the moods and movements of two occurrences we all have the opportunity to witness every day: the sunrise and the sunset. Typically thought of as either impossible to capture in a way that’s true to the experience — or else clichéd and sentimental — Wessen instead uses abstraction to organize this daily ritual into a show that is colorful, bold and graphic, more akin to a PANTONE color book than nature photography. Matt and C.YV Program Director, Caroline Partamian, chatted via Zoom as Caroline spent time in the gallery with Matt’s work.

Next Episode

Allegra Pacheco Describes Tadao Ando and James Turrell

Allegra Pacheco is a Costa Rican multidisciplinary artist best known for her 2021 documentary film about white-collar workers in Japan, Salaryman, which won Best Documentary and Best Composer (James Iha) at the Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival the same year. A Renaissance woman who works across cultures and media to tell stories through film, immersive installations, sculptures, paintings, and more, she is equally at home in her art studio in Escazu, Costa Rica — where she is currently preparing work for Compound YV's Spring 2023 show, Imaginary Landscapes (title and concept courtesy of Allegra).

The work she describes in this episode is:

Tadao Ando (Japanese, 1941-) and James Turrell (American, 1943-)

The Art House Project: Minamidera

1998-1999

Naoshima