It’s no surprise about my love for the first 35 minutes of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I’ve shared plenty of Love Letters on this blog about Deer Meadow and the Fat Trout Trailer Park. For this Art Peaks article, I’m spotlighting a gorgeous piece of Harry Dean Stanton as Carl Rodd by hyperrealist artist Eric White. It was created for the 20th Anniversary of my favorite David Lynch film in April 2012.
COPRO GALLERY IN SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA
Founded in 1992 by Joe Copro, Greg Escalante and Douglas Nason, Copro Gallery serves as “an entity to curate art exhibitions of emerging artists and publish the highest quality limited edition prints.”
Located at the Bergamot Arts Complex at 2525 Michigan Ave T5 in Santa Monica, the gallery, which was a former train station, is divided into two exhibition spaces. In 2012, the large Twin Peaks group exhibition, took up several rooms.
The Gallery still has a dedicated page to this exhibit on their website including the press release above.
WHO IS ARTIST ERIC WHITE?
Eric White is an New York-based visual artist who was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1990, and served as an adjunct professor at The School of Visual Arts in New York City since 2006. White received a Painting Fellowship from The New York Foundation for the Arts in 2010. According to an December 2018 article by Henri Neuendorf for ArtNet News, Mr. White has developed quite a following in recent years.
“[White} has quietly developed a devoted following and counts among his collectors actors Viggo Mortensen, David Arquette, and Leonardo DiCaprio; cyclist Lance Armstrong; fellow artist Shepard Fairey; and [former] Nike CEO Mark Parker.”
In 2017, White designed the album cover for Tyler, the Creator’s, Flower Boy.
But it’s his artwork from 2012 that first introduced me to White’s work.
“LET’S ROCK” BY ERIC WHITE
White created this piece for the 20th Anniversary group exhibition featuring the late Harry Dean Stanton.
The oil on canvas work had a 12-inch diameter and was sold for $4,000. How I wish I could have got this piece. I also wonder who has it today.
Here’s an image of Eric’s work from the Copro Gallery website.
White gave a preview of his work via an Instagram post on April 20, 2012, the day before the opening night event. Eric called him “Sir Harry Dean Stanton” in the post but Stanton was never knighted by the Queen. Yet I would call him that too, or better yet, I would call him “Your Majesty” as he was a King.
I’VE ALREADY GONE PLACES
I believe Eric used this specific image of Harry Dean Stanton in Teresa Banks’ trailer as inspiration. The image is found just after the utility pole is shown and Carl Rodd takes a drag of his cigarette. It’s before he tells the FBI Agents that “he’s already gone places.”
Eric combined the image from Banks’ trailer with the scene of Special Agent Dale Cooper through Chet Desmond’s car window.
Of course, the writing on Chet’s window says “Let’s Rock,” which is also the title of the piece. I still wonder which crew member wrote that phrase on the car window.
HARRY DEAN STANTON
Eric featured Harry Dean Stanton again in a 2014 oil-on-canvas work titled, “Down In Front: Love In The Afternoon.” It measured 20 x 36 inches.
The piece was created for Eric White’s second solo show at Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea in Italy. The gallery’s website describes his show as the following:
“In expanding upon his car series, inaugurated for his first solo show at the gallery in 2011, White in his recent body if work, takes on a new perspective looking out instead of in. The point of view in the paintings is from the backseat of a car, and whether at a drive-in movie or in front of a billboard, the viewer becomes the passenger and we are essentially watching the watcher watch. There is an element of voyeurism, yet the proximity to and occasional glance from the figures makes us feel uncomfortably intimate. White maintains a claustrophobic sense of space within a stylized yet naturalistic environment, and we become immersed in a disconcerting deja vu that lies beyond a specific time and place.”
It’s a beautiful piece of a beautiful man.
THIN CONNECTION TO DAVID LYNCH
Speaking of cars, Eric White has a distant connection to David Lynch via his girlfriend of five years.
Eric and Patricia Arquette have dated for the past five years. She’s mentioned him and his artwork several times at award shows and television premieres. They are seen together in a photograph from March 2019 at the premiere for “The Act” on Hulu.
Arquette stared in David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997) as Renee Madison and Alice Wakefield.
If you like Eric’s work, follow him online at his website – EWhite.com – or via Instagram.
