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The clock is ticking on the art of Eric Butcher. In 2020, motivated by environmental anxiety, the artist made an extraordinary commitment; to use only those materials already available in his studio - using up, repurposing and recycling what he already has without consuming more. When he has run out of materials he will simply stop making art.
Over the past six years Butcher has relentlessly pursued the logic of this enquiry, destroying his own work in the process and re-presenting the fragments of paint sandwiched between sheets of glass like specimens; a ‘natural history’ of his creative past.
Sumptuously documented by photographer Peter Abrahams with a fascinating essay by Jonathan Watkins and a revelling ‘in conversation’ between Eric Butcher and artist/write David Batchelor, Trace Elements chronicles this unique and compelling on-going project.
About the author
Born in 1970, Eric Butcher studied Philosophy at Cambridge University and Painting at Wimbledon School of Art. He has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally with shows in Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Australia and the USA. Recent work has been shortlisted for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, the Contemporary British Painting Prize, the Ruskin Art Prize and the Derwent Drawing Prize. He has work in public and private collections worldwide. He lives and works in Oxfordshire.
Jonathan Watkins is an independent curator and writer. Formerly Director of the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and Curator of the Serpentine Gallery, London, he has also curated projects at the Venice Biennale, Hayward Gallery and Tate.
David Batchelor is an artist, writer and leading authority on colour, his book Chromophobia being a seminal work on the subject. He has exhibited at MOMA New York, the Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, the São Paulo Biennale and Tate.
