Eric Stotik named RACC’s 2011 Fellow in Visual Arts

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) is pleased to announce its 2011 Fellow in Visual Arts: Eric Stotik. This fellowship honor carries a cash award of $20,000.

“Eric Stotik is one of our community’s most extraordinary artists,” said Eloise Damrosch, executive director of RACC. “His unique paintings  are compelling because they are intelligent and mysterious. We are delighted to extend Eric this recognition and we thank him for his contributions to the visual arts in Portland."

Born and raised in Papua, New Guinea, to Lutheran missionaries, Stotik came to Portland to attend Pacific Northwest College of Arts, receiving a B.F.A. in 1985. For the past 26 years he has produced gorgeously unique artwork, transcending time and place. With his extraordinary technical ability he creates surreal paintings — skeletons with wings, arms and legs emerging from red smoke, a nude figure hung over a bear skin — compelling images drawn from Stotik’s curious mind. The effect he is aiming for, he has noted, is “insight with a gasp.”

Stotik’s work was championed early on by the Portland art community. He began showing with the Jamison-Thomas Gallery after graduation; later at Jane Beebe’s PDX Contemporary; and is currently represented by Laura Russo Gallery. In Chicago, he exhibits at the Packer Schoof Gallery. He has had numerous solo exhibits in the Northwest and around the country, in addition to participating in hundreds of selected group exhibitions. He has collaborated with Bullseye Glass on artwork and Chel White Films/Bent Image Lab on animation projects. Stotik has been awarded the Betty Bowen Memorial Award from the Seattle Art Museum and the Juror’s Award at Around Oregon Show from the Corvallis Art Center.

RACC’s fellowship award will allow Stotik, who paints small format in his basement, to rent a studio so he can create paintings on a larger scale.  The award will also allow him to purchase his first computer, so he can pursue his visual research online; better communicate with the broader art world; and pursue new opportunities for professional development. Stotik's work can be seen at the Laura Russo Gallery.

The RACC Artists Fellowship Award, established in 1999, is one of the largest and most prestigious grants to individual artists in the Pacific Northwest.  One fellowship is awarded each year, rotating through four artistic disciplines. Next year, a media artist will be honored. For more information, visit www.racc.org/grants/individual-artist-fellowships. 

To be eligible for consideration, professional artists must have worked in their field for 10 years and have lived in the Portland tri-county area for five years. Applications, which include three narrative questions, artist resumes, two letters of recommendation, and examples of the artist’s work, are reviewed through a panel process of community representatives from the discipline being honored. 

Christine Clark, Elizabeth Conner, Julia Dolan, David Eckard, Nathan Orosco, Tad Savinar, Storm Tharp served as panelists for the Visual Arts Fellowship this year.

Stotik joins a prestigious group of local artists who have been named RACC Fellows in the past, including:

• 1999, Performing Arts – Obo Addy and Mary Oslund
• 2000, Visual Arts – Terry Toedtemeier and Christine Bourdette
• 2001, Literary & Media Arts – Michele Glazer and Jim Blashfield
• 2002, Performing Arts – Tomas Svoboda and Keith Scales
• 2003, Visual Arts – Michael Brophy and Judy Cooke
• 2004, Literary & Media Arts – Craig Lesley and Chel White
• 2005, Performing Arts – Thara Memory
• 2006, Visual Arts – Henk Pander
• 2007, Media Arts – Joanna Priestley
• 2008, Literary Arts – Kim Stafford
• 2010, Performing Arts— Robin Lane