Eric Mack
Digital Emotions
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Dear Eric,
Let's start with the first question: What rhythms set off your work? I usually have an idea, series, theme that will come to me or that I am interested in working with and developing. But the core of it all is made up of patterns, shapes, systems found in our environments. |
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The works for my most recent series, which I created while I was in Germany, were really informed by the architecture, design sensibility, space, spatial elements I experienced everywhere. I travelled around Europe, I went to Turkey, Hungary, Switzerland among other countries. I spent time and lived among these systems, even architecture is a livable system. In Europe, you see history at a different level. All of it had an effect on me.
My work always refers to various things I acquire as they possess systems, patterns and compositions. I would find invitations to different concerts, postcards, magazines. I would basically take them and rearrange them in my own personal vocabulary. So yes, usually it starts with a theme or an idea and it kind of grows from there.
Your works are about structure, but there is also playfulness. Your titles are very intriguing and that leads us to ask what's the process of selecting your titles?
A lot of these patterns and forms that I find are out in the world for anyone to use. I try to make it personal. I travel around. I collect. I wait until I have the right project to incorporate every piece of paper or object of interest.
All my titles are alpha numeric. The reason is going back to the personal element. First, my love for technology comes across. But there’s also an indication of my experiences growing up, my childhood aspirations. I am really inspired by music and sound. I always wanted to be a DJ. When I started getting into paintings, people were saying, "it’s almost like you’re doing remixes in the visual form." I’m taking these samples, chopping them, editing them, and relaying the track. It’s almost like a DJ from back in the day with the cassette rack, the equalizer component, the double cassette component and then the turntable, the amp. That’s the kind of thing I grew up on with different components each labeled or titled specifically. It was always the alpha numeric. That's how I decided not to make titles that are just straight on verbal, giving you the spoon and putting in it your mouth. I wanted to have a title that is still very detailed, still very personal. The alpha usually goes back or refers to the theme or color palette and various things in the piece. I’ll choose colors themes to represent to a particular series. The numeric will always derive from numbers of my birthday. So I would take March 19, 1976. All numbers that are connected to my piece derive from my birthday. I get a calculator out and I basically only use 3 - 19 - 1976 and I juxtapose those numbers multiply, divide, add, and subtract those numbers with one another to get various arrangements or various outcomes which all base from my birthday. That’s the alpha numeric in the work.
Who is the main character who gave you the green light for take off?
Mom. I can't say I'm a bookworm, but I grew up in a house where my mother would always have us study. Even in the summer time, we would have like 15-20 different work books English math and constantly doing homework. Even when I wasn’t in school, I was in school. I still doing these kinds of things, it’s therapeutic.
My mom is very happy. When I wanted to go to arts school, first I told mom. I had a very good portfolio review and I got accepted at SVA. Mom said, “No, I don’t think so. You need to go to school, closer to home.” My home is Charleston, SC. I applied to Atlanta College of Art. From then on mom said, “OK, you can go to ACA. But what will you do when you get out?” I told her, “Mom I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I have to go there.” I couldn’t go to a liberal arts school. I had to go to the arts school. My mom and my father made it possible. Mom is super excited about what I ended up doing with my career.
I have a younger sister. Her name is Jennifer Mack Watkins. She is a printmaker. She has two masters’ degrees in printmaking and art education from Tufts and Pratt. She is teaching in NJ now. She just came back from Japan completing her printmaking residency there. She is doing a lot of great things in printmaking.
I have a younger brother who is also an artist. He went to Savannah College of Arts and Design. He was doing industrial design. He is a shoe designer. He has a line called Michael Grey footwear. He lives in Brooklyn. He studied in Italy for a year at Polimoda.
Basically, it’s like I opened the door for arts in my family for my siblings. Well, mom opened the door. We walked through.
Composites...
That body of work was done for the Atlanta International Airport. I had a solo exhibit there.
I did 15 paintings for that series. Composites, Post Reality NOW. I wanted to preset a series that could connect to every viewer, every person walking through the airport. It had to be work that could relate to people from around the world or maybe people who were just coming for a layover. What connects us as a global community? And the things that connect the global community are sound, sight, language, patterns, and forms. So, I used books that had sign language symbols, text that had sheet music, international texts from different songs of different counties and places. I had anatomical, bones, skeletal form, a great anatomy book, warfare, military stuff. It was a medley of global significant symbols.
Composites was a composite of grouping of what connects the global community.
My work always refers to various things I acquire as they possess systems, patterns and compositions. I would find invitations to different concerts, postcards, magazines. I would basically take them and rearrange them in my own personal vocabulary. So yes, usually it starts with a theme or an idea and it kind of grows from there.
Your works are about structure, but there is also playfulness. Your titles are very intriguing and that leads us to ask what's the process of selecting your titles?
A lot of these patterns and forms that I find are out in the world for anyone to use. I try to make it personal. I travel around. I collect. I wait until I have the right project to incorporate every piece of paper or object of interest.
All my titles are alpha numeric. The reason is going back to the personal element. First, my love for technology comes across. But there’s also an indication of my experiences growing up, my childhood aspirations. I am really inspired by music and sound. I always wanted to be a DJ. When I started getting into paintings, people were saying, "it’s almost like you’re doing remixes in the visual form." I’m taking these samples, chopping them, editing them, and relaying the track. It’s almost like a DJ from back in the day with the cassette rack, the equalizer component, the double cassette component and then the turntable, the amp. That’s the kind of thing I grew up on with different components each labeled or titled specifically. It was always the alpha numeric. That's how I decided not to make titles that are just straight on verbal, giving you the spoon and putting in it your mouth. I wanted to have a title that is still very detailed, still very personal. The alpha usually goes back or refers to the theme or color palette and various things in the piece. I’ll choose colors themes to represent to a particular series. The numeric will always derive from numbers of my birthday. So I would take March 19, 1976. All numbers that are connected to my piece derive from my birthday. I get a calculator out and I basically only use 3 - 19 - 1976 and I juxtapose those numbers multiply, divide, add, and subtract those numbers with one another to get various arrangements or various outcomes which all base from my birthday. That’s the alpha numeric in the work.
Who is the main character who gave you the green light for take off?
Mom. I can't say I'm a bookworm, but I grew up in a house where my mother would always have us study. Even in the summer time, we would have like 15-20 different work books English math and constantly doing homework. Even when I wasn’t in school, I was in school. I still doing these kinds of things, it’s therapeutic.
My mom is very happy. When I wanted to go to arts school, first I told mom. I had a very good portfolio review and I got accepted at SVA. Mom said, “No, I don’t think so. You need to go to school, closer to home.” My home is Charleston, SC. I applied to Atlanta College of Art. From then on mom said, “OK, you can go to ACA. But what will you do when you get out?” I told her, “Mom I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I have to go there.” I couldn’t go to a liberal arts school. I had to go to the arts school. My mom and my father made it possible. Mom is super excited about what I ended up doing with my career.
I have a younger sister. Her name is Jennifer Mack Watkins. She is a printmaker. She has two masters’ degrees in printmaking and art education from Tufts and Pratt. She is teaching in NJ now. She just came back from Japan completing her printmaking residency there. She is doing a lot of great things in printmaking.
I have a younger brother who is also an artist. He went to Savannah College of Arts and Design. He was doing industrial design. He is a shoe designer. He has a line called Michael Grey footwear. He lives in Brooklyn. He studied in Italy for a year at Polimoda.
Basically, it’s like I opened the door for arts in my family for my siblings. Well, mom opened the door. We walked through.
Composites...
That body of work was done for the Atlanta International Airport. I had a solo exhibit there.
I did 15 paintings for that series. Composites, Post Reality NOW. I wanted to preset a series that could connect to every viewer, every person walking through the airport. It had to be work that could relate to people from around the world or maybe people who were just coming for a layover. What connects us as a global community? And the things that connect the global community are sound, sight, language, patterns, and forms. So, I used books that had sign language symbols, text that had sheet music, international texts from different songs of different counties and places. I had anatomical, bones, skeletal form, a great anatomy book, warfare, military stuff. It was a medley of global significant symbols.
Composites was a composite of grouping of what connects the global community.
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What do you credit with the musicality of your work?
I always wanted to be a drummer. I never learned as a youth. When I got into the drawing, painting, illustrations, these patterns, started coming out in my work. Part of the musicality has to do with the drummer who never learned how to play. I now play the drums with the paint brush or canvas or wood or any other structure that I kind of can get hold to and work.
It’s also a direct indicator of my love for music. I grew up in South Caroline, in the low country. I grew up in a neighborhood, near an army base, where I went to school with people from the Philippines, Korea, China, Mexico, you name it. It was a vast array of people I grew up with and influenced by as I got to know, understand and love. I think that brought along a lot of music too.
And you know what, I am old skate rat. Tony Hawk, is the guy I grew up with, the kind of energy shows up in the work.
Digital Emotions...
It was around 2003 when I made that work. A lot of great artists were doing their thing. I wanted to create a body of work that would separate me from others. I didn’t want anybody to get me mixed up with anyone else. They were various artists who were doing paintings and incorporating collage elements. With my love for technology, I started bringing in more digital components into the work. I bought a really good mixer from Radio Shack. The mixer had a schematic booklet that came with it. They had the plugs, the wires. It had the instructions how to set up the components. I took that booklet to the Xerox machine, blew it up, chopped it up, cut it up, and laid it into some paintings. And that’s how Digital Emotions came about. I started to incorporate digital and technological elements into the work. Not so much about the letters and shapes and various. I really honed in dealing with electronic elements and that’s how that series was built.
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What you’d like to see more of and less of with regards to yourself, your circles, and the world?
On a personal level. There’s a lot of creativity, a lot of people doing a lot of great things. But even with that there’s a lot of division. From large scale, to the local division, it’s the core, it kind of impedes growth. The focus should be about closing up the gaps. Working on vices is what slows down growth. Division is something we oughta work on.
Moving on to a larger scale, love, that what I’d like to see. There’s a lot of separation. A lot of division. Love, I know it’s possible. We are all humans. I want to see more open heart and more understanding. It’s not all about the exterior. Skin doesn’t make a difference. I want people trying to come together. Let’s work together. We have to understand each other a little more. It’s definitely possible.
Let’s make it happen!
On a personal level. There’s a lot of creativity, a lot of people doing a lot of great things. But even with that there’s a lot of division. From large scale, to the local division, it’s the core, it kind of impedes growth. The focus should be about closing up the gaps. Working on vices is what slows down growth. Division is something we oughta work on.
Moving on to a larger scale, love, that what I’d like to see. There’s a lot of separation. A lot of division. Love, I know it’s possible. We are all humans. I want to see more open heart and more understanding. It’s not all about the exterior. Skin doesn’t make a difference. I want people trying to come together. Let’s work together. We have to understand each other a little more. It’s definitely possible.
Let’s make it happen!