Eric and Erin Dodson share a studio in their Kansas home. Despite working in different media, their mutual interest in texture and surface is apparent in Proximal Topologies – an exhibition of photography and mixed media work. 

Eric Dodson

“I have always been interested in the latent residual history of found objects, whether specific or in general,” says Eric. “Found objects are inherently imbued with a sense of the progression of time. In that way, they can be viewed as reflective metaphors for the human experience. Objects are touchstones which ground us in the tangible world. They accompany us in our journeys; they stand apart from our consciousness as another.”

Eric’s work utilizes found objects for their potential connotative possibilities on a variety of levels, including literal, figurative, linguistic, cultural, and personal. These objects and materials are juxtaposed in order to create a subtle matrix of potential resonance of meaning and allusion, but also exist apart from meaning as plastic design elements. The layering of surfaces is a key part of the process of my work. Textures function as a bridge between imagination and reality.

“I consider my work as an artist to be related to the creation of an abstracted visual language manifested through inexplicit symbol-forms. I am interested in the intervals within the language, the space between elements.

Erin Dodson

“My photo- and video-based work deals with concurrent realities, distorted memory, and unknowability,” says Erin. “I do not aim to document facts, but use the tools of photography to rearrange the true stuff of the world into narratives full of poetic liberty and fabrication, or investigations of scientific and metaphysical ideas. Found imagery plays into my work, and I often harvest my own original content from years past to create something removed from its primary context.”

Though her math skills are lacking, she says, she is intrigued by mathematical concepts and verbal descriptions of theories. “In this series of images, I started with the idea of an abstract, mathematical surface that blankets everything but does not have a depth – it is two-dimensional – and how complex it would be to define because of the intense variation of the surface of the earth. I contrast that abstraction with the tactile, emotional qualities that come with light and color.”

Ton Haak,
Matfield Green KS, June 2015