Erin Currier grew up in Massachusetts. She recalls Sundays at her grandparents’ house: “My vast extended family would often bicker and debate—coming as they were from various points on the political, educational and class perspective—that is, until the Bruins, the Red Sox, the Patriots or Andre Agassi would appear on the television. Suddenly, a family that seemed hopelessly at odds huddled together, laughing and smiling, radiating a collective happiness. Likewise, the family unified while playing sports like tennis or volleyball.”
Naomi Osaka, acrylic and mixed media on panel, 24 x 18"
Lacey Baker, acrylic and mixed media on panel, 36 x 24"
As an established artist now living in Santa Fe, she observes, “on a personal level, the essential healing power of athletics—of movement—has saved my life these past several years—as my lifelong passions and pursuits of walking, hiking, martial arts, qi gong, shaking yoga, swimming and dance, became crucial to moving through grief and moving forward in terms of the death of loved ones.”
She traveled the world with her late partner, artist and poet Anthony Hassett, gathering ephemera that become incorporated into her paintings and experiencing the lives, trials and environments of diverse people.
She comments, “As a humanist artist whose portraiture is rooted in the ideal of dignity for all, sports have long fascinated me as a genre that transcends race, ethnicity, class, gender and nationality. I have seen this unifying potential firsthand played out all over the world. Professional sports are one of the few fields in which an athlete can emerge from abject poverty and command the immediate respect of millions of people. Sports are often at the vanguard of allowing for equality and dignity that societies must catch up to and meet.”
US Women’s Soccer Team (after Delacroix), acrylic and mixed media on panel, 60 x 72"
Easkey Briton, acrylic and mixed media on panel, 24 x 18"
Her latest series of paintings is Muse in Motion: Athletes & Activism. The idea, she says, “has long been percolating: perhaps sparked upon first seeing the iconic Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics in one of my many civil rights history books; or perhaps growing up when Michael Jordan was King of the World, and Arthur Ashe, Tiger Woods, and the Williams sisters were breaking down barriers and breaking records in their respective fields…Or maybe the impetus was a more recent one: when Colin Kaepernick took the knee and set the nation on fire; or in being privy to the unbeatable U.S. women’s soccer team speaking out and standing up for women’s rights and fair wages for all.”
Her painting of the U.S. women’s soccer team recalls Gericault’s Liberty Leading the People. Team captain Megan Rapinoe carries the flag (as Liberty carried the tricolor) after the team’s 2019 Women’s World Cup victory.
Muse in Motion: Athletes & Activism opens at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, September 11 to 26. —
Blue Rain Gallery 544 S. Guadalupe Street • Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 954-9902 • www.blueraingallery.com
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