Saturday, June 19, 2010

Erik Johnson- Work of Art


I've been watching Bravo's new reality show "Work of Art, The Next Great Artist". I watch because it is amusing, and I hope that it gets the general public more interested in and not as afraid of walking into a gallery. That's neither here or there, for this post though.

  The second episode that aired this week had a little bit of a blurb by one of the artists competing. It went something like this  ... 

"since my brain injury is on my left side, I've gotten obsessive about art"....   followed by "I just lost my train of thought"  

  Not the exact quote, but you get the idea.  I stopped sketching, and sat with full attention directed at the television, at Erik.  My people!!!!!      When I first heard about this show, I thought to myself... "there's no way I would be able to do that, my injury would overrun me and I would have a breakdown on camera....  I wonder if they would accept anyone like me?".   And.. they did.  And... I'm happy.



I found the "Get to Know Erik" video on Bravo's site, along with his Bio. I patiently watched, and wondered... would he say something more about his brain injury?  And... he did.

Erik Johnson says he had a "series, of three pretty major head injuries. Things just got more and more intense and weirder and art kinda grew from that. That's when the art just kind of became obsessive where I couldn't. Stop. Doing. It."

That sounds familiar.


Erik did say in the episode that there was a motorcycle accident, but he hasn't explained any more... what types of injuries, how severe. Maybe Bravo is just saving this for future episodes?            I'll let you all know.

1 comment:

Il Mare Atelier said...

I love how you have showcased the artists, their stories and their works here. It lets me take a peek behind the scenes and I feel I'm able to understand their art more.