Erik Niemann Artist Statement and Bio

My abstract paintings are derived from my architectural background and fascination with agricultural patterns.  My paintings (acrylic on canvas, applied with metal tools) examine the relationship between the measurable world and the immeasurable. 

I grew up west of Modesto, California among orchards, fields of crops, dairies, and irrigation canals.  As a child, I was fascinated with how water quickly moved out of the irrigation gates and flooded the adjacent fields and orchards, and then would disappear a couple days later. In my paintings, series of abstracted orchards, vineyards, and crops disappear, reappear, and are absorbed by areas of abstracted flood waters. 

Erik has been painting professionally since January 2002. Erik’s paintings are collected throughout 20 US states as well as Australia, Mexico, and Tunisia. Between September 2008 and May 2010, three of Erik’s paintings were on display inside the United States Embassy in Dili, East Timor through the Art in Embassies program of the US State Department.

Erik earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Kansas (1995) and also studied one year in Copenhagen, and a year in graduate school at the Architectural Association in London.

Erik’s art studio is located in downtown Fresno at M Street Arts Complex. 1419 M Street, Studio 12, Fresno, California. His studio is open the first Thursday evening (5pm-8pm) of each month for Open Studios.

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For images of Erik's most recent works, please click on the Instagram icon below.