Bio

“Seashells of the Psychedelic Sixties” was a rather shocking banner headline for the arts section of the Boston Globe on the Sunday after the premier of Multimedia ’74 presented in the sanctuary of the Church of the Covenant on the Public Garden. Yes there were a couple mirror balls, but a one-time malfunction to the paper tape that controlled all the various projectors for Every Bloomin’ Thing wasn’t particularly helpful. Paul Eric’s earliest public work was involved in this evolving, defining period for multimedia. But in “Shooting Minutemen on Split Screens”, an international review by Stuart Byron for Film Comment, he says the three excellent examples on view in Boston for the Bicentennial, including The Concord Conscience, proved the short form viability of “multi-media films”. Inclusion in the weekly highlights of the Real Paper and Phoenix also helped provide an overflow crowd for the live performance of A Natural History at the Boston Film/Video Foundation. He also contributed his expertise to I am the Afro American by the Roxbury Learning and Training Center during the difficult year of Boston’s busing crisis. Paul’s first significant publication recounted in photography and words an extended expedition to reverse trace a heritage north to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador. “Visit to Vinland” appeared in the Scandinavian Review in 1976. With Voyageur Press he later authored two travel books, Lighthouses of the Mid–Atlantic Coast and Backroads of New Jersey. Recent publications have included excerpts from his poetry and photography from Reimagine New England in About Place Journal by the Black Earth Institute, Wisconsin, and Art Ascent Journal, Ontario. Paul’s first solo shows were at the Darkroom Gallery in Cambridge and the Lightsources Gallery in Boston. At the time color prints were rarely seen on exhibition in that town. Indeed photography itself remained somewhat suspect as an art form. But with Paul Simon’s ode to Kodachrome on the FM airwaves, and the film in a Nikon F2, his specialist work in Boston neighborhoods and throughout New England was represented internationally by the Liaison and then Getty Agencies, New York. Both Paul Strand’s Time in New England and Ernst Haas’ Creation were initiating inspirations. Pete Turner’s striking color was impactful along with William Eggleston’s color sophistication. The only lasting color paper darkroom available was Cibachrome and Paul’s work with this material was recognized by Ciba-Geigy (Switzerland) in their International Grant Awards. Those vintage prints have retained their color integrity today. Recent developments in digital printing enable a wide palette of color encompassing the full range of these early color films and archival capacities to hundreds of years. Like oil paintings they use pigments rather than dyes and may accomplish an exquisite control of hue and tone. Paul’s technique was featured in Mastering Digital Printing, the first definitive “textbook” in 2003. “See the Color Paint the Light.” Paul’s pushing pixels continues under the influence of this classic edict of the Cape School Impressionism exhibited at the Wohlfarth Galleries in Provincetown where he was Director of Photography. He currently maintains a private gallery in Stafford Springs CT, is an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, and a Guild Member at the Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan. Recent exhibition and publication includes Beneath the Surface, a collaboration of the Art League of Rhode Island with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute at the University or Rhode Island, The Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA, the Providence Art Club, RI, the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA, Photoville/Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, NY, House of Lucie, Los Angeles, CA, 19th Pollux Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, Dodho Color Awards, International Monovisions Awards, and the International Black & White Spider Awards.