Àquas de Março (Waters of March)

artist statement

“For many, spring marks the beginning of the year. In the Southern Hemisphere the seasons follow in the opposite progression. I experience spring as a touchstone, a new beginning, a self awareness in nature which my paintings track. This season has been spent much closer to home. I find myself paying particular attention to spring as it unfolds, from a dim yellow or green in March, to pale pinks which build in intensity through April, followed in May by the return of the tree canopy first experienced as red and bright green hues exploding with everything that comes along with it.

I grew up listening to bossa nova, Antonio Carlos Jobim and his song, Àguas de Março, one of Brazil's all time hits (published in 1972) and popular worldwide. The lyrics present a series of images as the melody descends, which tracks the rain in March, carrying sticks, stones, bits of everything down the streets of Rio de Janerio to the Atlantic. I find the song as joyful, as the pandemic grim, and struggle, remembering, as spring turns into summer and so on."

Eric Dever’s paintings harken from experiences deep within his sensory memory, including growing up in California. “Los Angeles is subtropical, the sun is more intense and sets over the Pacific.” In Drive-By-Art (Public Art in this Moment of Social Distancing) organized by Waren Neidich, Dever paints his experience of plants that he cultivates in his Water Mill studio garden. Forms appear weightless and at times dematerialize reversing figure and ground. These sensations inform Dever’s work today here on the East End of Long Island becoming examples of a type of compressed time. Dever developed his full spectrum visual language after years of studying white, black, and red, which the artist describes as like breaking a long fast, and continuing his inclusion of color, he arrived at his current work.