b. 1960, Los Angeles, CA

Eric Zammitt’s work alludes to the dynamics and interplay of dual elements: matter and energy, spirit and body, emotion and intellect. It is simultaneously about our Gestalt experience of the drama and beauty of creation, our intellectual fascination with its parts, and how they come together to create a whole.

One of the methods to express this interplay is by compounding complexes of patterned color into synergistic wholes. Color and pattern are primal to our history and survival. They touch parts of us that are archetypal, rooted in nature, and infinitely curious. Zammitt employs abstraction and minimalism as ways to bypass the literal and go directly to metaphor, emotion, and the ineffable. At the same time, like classical music, which integrates intellect and emotion, his works are based in structure, rhythm, and a form of logic.

These “paintings” are made from tens of thousands of solid bits of colored acrylic plastic. They are laminated into cohesive panels through an intensive process of layering, slicing, reassembly, wet-sanding and polishing. For Zammitt, colored acrylic plastics are simply solid forms of paint, and his “brushes” are the band saw, table saw, and glue.