In his works Eric van Boxtel combines personal drawings with graphic visuals and expressionistic painting to a mixture that reads like a modern style visual poem. Most of the time there is a lot going on in each piece. It’s how his mind works while creating. A lot of associating, trying, failing, trying again.
“My busy way of thinking is reflected in the combination of techniques. I constantly change, from paint, to crayons, to spraypaint, to markers, to paste-ups, etc. When I’m stuck with one technique I hop to another. I like the layered effect of all these materials combined. I add and erase, work in many layers, sometimes wet in wet so the effect of a battered surface is created which I like very much. It’s like traces on an old posterwall.”
“The humans condition, personal observations and the beauty of the everyday modern communication are some of the influences of my art. But anything can strike my mind, words of a song, a story on the news or a personal happening”
“The graphic elements in my art come from both my background as a designer and a personal love for the modern human communication in everyday life. Especially when it’s simplified to make people interact with them fast, like pictograms, manuals, traffic signs, graphic posters, advertisements. By putting them out of there context I alienate them from there original intentions and give them a new meaning.”
“Drawing is the foundation of my art. My style is a personal handwriting I developed from years of drawing in sketchbooks. The style of drawing derives from cartoons, doodle art and pop-culture. A lot of personal ‘hieroglyphic’ symbols re-appear in my works; eyes, palmtrees, heads, botanic structures, birds. It’s like a language for things I can’t put to words. My sketchbooks are my source from which ideas appear. The love of drawing is something I’ve had since my childhood. It’s still a magical feeling of putting a line to a blank paper and seeing something new appear.”
“My way of creating, both drawing and painting, are a process of creating as it happens, associating on things I see and remember. In the process I am as much a maker as a spectator. I draw from things in my head and collected visual material lying around in my studio. While making new ideas occur, coincidences happen, the material speaks. And in this dialogue of making and associating new ideas arise and decisions are made. In the end I want to be be as surprised and wondered by my work as any other viewer.”