Eric Dever (born, Los Angeles, 1962) moved to New York in 1986 to study painting and critical theory at NYU/Steinhardt (MA’88-studio art). His work since the early 1990’s has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally. Dever is represented by Berry Campbell Gallery, New York.

For more than a decade, Dever employed a square canvas and limited palette, white for four years, then white and black for two years, and since then white, black, and red. Uncovering a staggering amount of variety, both in hue and composition, it was an exercise most notable when the works were placed together, each painting holding its own. 

In January 2019, Berry Campbell will present Dever’s second one person exhibition with the gallery. “Moving to a rectangular format loosened up my compositions, there was no longer a central area of interest, but multiple areas of concentration.” More dramatically, Dever rediscovered color—not just one or two, but the entire spectrum, which also corresponds directly with his awareness of the Indian and yogic notion of the chakras (7 energetic centers in the human body where matter and consciousness meet). 

Dever’s painting approach involves taking shapes from one canvas and adding them to another, often through a mono print process of painting onto a surface and transferring that to a canvas. “These repetitions of forms and other planned elements, together with his more gestural painting of the rest of the canvas, creates a charged tension between spontaneity and organization…one of the ways de Kooning worked.” ¹

Recent one person exhibitions include Berry Campbell Gallery, New York (2014); Molly College, Kaiser Gallery, Rockville Centre (2014); New York University, Kimmel Galleries, New York (2015-16); Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California (2017). Dever's work was featured in the permanent collection exhibition, Parrish Perspectives: Art in Context, curated by Alicia G. Longwell at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York (2017). His paintings are currently on view in the U.S. Consulate General Hong Kong and Macau, Art in Embassies, Department of State exhibition (2016-19), and were also included in a lecture by Gail Levin, Distinguished Professor of Art History, Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, American Art and India: Cultural Exchange Among Artists of India and the United States, at the Pollock Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, New York (2016).

In 2012 at the invitation of artist Robert Dash, Dever inaugurated the first painting classes, which were critiqued by Dash, at the Madoo Conservancy, Sagaponack, New York. Dever continues to actively present innovative classes and workshops at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, where he has also spoken on the Parrish permanent collection, recent exhibitions including Parrish Perspectives, James Brooks, and Dever’s own oeuvre in PechaKucha-Volume 19, video taped before a live audience.

Dever’s paintings have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in many venues, including 80 Washington Square East Galleries, New York University, New York; ARCO Plaza, Los Angeles, California; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; Arizona State University, Phoenix; Art in General, New York; Elaine Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, New York; The Buddy Holly Center, Lubbock, Texas; Centre d’Art et Rencontres, Saint Just en Bellengard, France; Eastern New Mexico University, Portales; Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, Michigan; Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York; Heckscher Museum of Art, New York; Hudson River Museum, Hastings on the Hudson, New York; Islip Art Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Marymount University, San Pedro, California; Ohio State University, Marion; The Painting Center, New York; Paris CONCRET, France; Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York; Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum, Sag Harbor, New York; Spaces, Cleveland, Ohio; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Dever’s paintings are part of notable public collections including Centre d'Art et de Culture, Château d’Escueillens, Saint Just en Bellengard, France; The Francis J. Greenburger Collection, New York; Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection; Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, New York; New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, FishBridge Park; Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York; and numerous corporate and private collections including the Coca Cola Company, Atlanta, Georgia; Mark Hampton; Gracie Mansion; Sub Zero Freezer Company, Madison, Wisconsin; and Lady Juliet and Somerset de Chair.

Eric Dever’s meticulous abstract paintings are deeply informed by a discursive range of disciplines, including art history, philosophy, psychology, and spirituality. He deftly combines an orderly commitment to the ineffable materiality of paint with an expansive and sincere curiosity for the manifold dimensions of our gracefully complex existence. These two creative and intellectual imperatives work in productive concert with one another on his captivating canvases.

—Cynthia Hooper, Artist and Professor of Art at College of the Redwoods

Works by Eric Dever ask the viewer to ponder the phenomenon of change, an observation on the impermanence and mutability of life…Dever skillfully manipulates the processes of repetition and cropping to enforce this notion of the transitory as do his reworked surfaces. 

—Philip Verre, director, Hudson River Museum of Art

Elemental and exacting, Dever’s paintings make you feel like he invented color.

—Janet Goleas, Blinnk, East Hampton, New York

Dever is a must-see…His rose breaking thru metallic black fills you with energy.

—Gail Sheehy, author, journalist and lecturer

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¹Landes, Jennifer. (2017, April 6). Eric Dever: A Year of Discovery, The East Hampton Star.

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