E.R. Gott - The Sign Read 'Gone to Croatan'
Acrylic on wood cradle
24 in × 20 in
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Deriving from war time propaganda posters themes like Victory, Strength, Duty, Idealized Utopian Prosperity and the manner in which they manipulate our emotions and desires. Much of this work explores the utopian idea that being able to see things in a puritan, absolute manner can be persuasive, and yet in the layers and textures applied to the work, E.R. Gott seems to also remind us there is always a more nuanced view to be understood.
E.R. Gott is the pseudonym under which visual artist, Ian Nikolaus, furthers the suggestion regarding the state in which he approaches his painting style.
Ian is a self-taught artist who has been practicing and presenting his art along the West Coast for the past 20 years. He approaches art as a meta-language populated by instincts, archetypes, and primal symbols of our collective unconscious which has profound influence on the lives of individuals; who, time after time, embody these symbols and clothe them in meaning through their experiences.
Armed with an electric colour palette, a multi-disciplinary practice, and an intentional unrefined technique, his work is based on a language rooted on the appropriation of pop/cultural icons both distinctive and familiar. Reinterpreted, obscured and distorted with the ideas of play and rebellion aimed to “destroy the reasonable deceptions of man and recover the natural and unreasonable order.”
