Student Spotlight: Eric Brittain ’20

The Student Spotlight series aims to highlight the work of current MFA students, asking them to share thoughts on their practice by answering curated and peer-submitted questions.

Eric Brittain ‘20 is an MFA Visual Arts student studying sculpture in his first year.

What themes or subjects are you currently addressing in your work?

My recent work explores the notion of embodied perception. More specifically, I'm interested in the richness and complexity of my sensory engagement with the real world and the challenge of translating these experiences into work in the studio. I'm often reflecting on my kinesthetic perception of mundane encounters with the objects and routines of daily life and considering ways to make the viewer more conscious of their own process of perception and interpretation.  

I've also been thinking a lot about the idea of faith as it relates to the creative act and learning to trust intuitive hunches that get the work started but also knowing when to relinquish self will and let a piece take its own path. I like the idea of becoming a passenger to the work, rather than a driver and letting the work take me by surprise.
 

Are there any themes or materials you’re interested in exploring in the future?

I'm interested in continuing to broaden my conception/definition of what constitutes art and further blurring the boundary between my daily life and studio work. Last year, I started making videos for the first time and hope to continue to explore the possibilities of moving image. I'm also hoping to experiment with clay and metal fabrication while I'm here at Columbia.
 

What challenges do you face in your practice?

My primary long term challenge is figuring out how to repay a mountain of student debt while still finding time to do personal studio work. Currently, my day-to-day challenges involve managing my time so I am able to work through all the ideas that are incubating, and distilling my own unique vision from a lifetime of diverse influences.
 

What artists or works inspire you?

Recently I've found inspiration in Tolstoy's exploration of the the spiritual in his later short stories such as Master and Man and The Death of Ivan Ilyich and How Much Land does a Man Need? Along a similar lines, I've been digging back into Flannery O'Connor's short stories and always appreciate her gritty southern realism and the possibility of redemptive grace that transforms her troubled characters. I'm always amazed by the depth of feeling in the movies, art, comics, and performances of my friend Carlos Gonzales who also records incredible music as Russian Tsarlag. The music art of my friend Jack Callahan (die Reihe) is exciting in the way it blends minimalist and conceptual approaches of the art world with contemporary music composition.  Music has always been a big source of inspiration. I listen to everything from classical to contemporary country and anything in between.

Visually, I've always appreciated the paintings of Alice Neel, Chaim Soutine, and John Frederick Kensett and recently I've been looking back at the Arte Povera and Mono-Ha movements.  Despite a range of influences, the direct inspiration for my work comes from observing my environment and normal life activities such as going to the flea-market, taking a walk in the woods, washing my hands, and moments of quiet reflection.
 

What has been your favorite class at Columbia so far?

Art Criticism with John Miller has been great. The class focuses on artists who have written about their work and the work of their contemporaries. He has a thorough understanding of the artists we discuss along with personal insight and anecdotes that make the material come to life.