The Human Condition: The Stephen and Pamela Hootkin Collection Sept. 2014 | Page 20

because Eberle’s style is not static. Dominant elements
become secondary on repeat viewings and vice versa.
Everything he has painted seems to be drawn in smoke.
Edward Eberle, The Wound, 1991.

In the beginning, simple shapes were common like
Effects of a Man’s Journey (1991), a classical baluster

influence, the one that set him off on this route, is a

form drawing little attention to itself, serving as a passive

little more surprising; the black and white bowls of the

porcelain canvas. But around this time he becomes much

Mimbres Indians (Arizona circa 1000 to 1200 CE). These

more ambitious. Place (1993) posits the form in contest

bowls were placed over the faces of the dead at burial

with the painting, each is dynamic and suggests movement,

with a small hole punched out of the center to allow the

at times in tandem, sometimes each vying for attention.

spirit to escape the body. Mimbres bowls are the only
ones in prehistoric Southwest pottery that have human
figures. They are drawn with extraordinary economy
and grace and have become a favorite of contemporary
artists such as Donald Judd and Tony Berlant.

Throwing with porcelain, a tight and unforgiving ceramic
paste, is difficult. The vitality Eberle is able to pull from his
wheel, and his subsequent reshaping of the large, lidded
tureen is remarkable. Its paper-thin walls, warped by the
kiln’s heat, speak of existential a nxieties, of vulnerabilities,

At first Eberle employed the flat, graphic stylization used

imminent fractures, of life on the cusp of disorder.

by both Mimbres and Greek potters and began to paint
inside the bowls and on the outer walls of his pots.

Michael Frimkess shares Eberle’s love of Greek pots.

Then he shifted from that form to deeper perspectives

Indeed, he enjoyed any pot that was a certified,

and appeared to paint “within” the pot’s volume. One

identifiable cultural icon from the past, including the

has to view this imagery as though it is floated inside a

Chinese ginger jar, Zuni olla pots and the Renaissance’s

goldfish bowl: swirling narratives, inhabited by mythic

albarello (apothecary) jar.

figures that float in and out of focus, sometimes with
full bodies and at other times disconnected parts. All
this content with suspended swirls of grey mist and
black ink, seemingly mutable and in flux. Eberle renders
everything in an interim state; completion is unnecessary.

Frimkess was the boy wonder of the Otis Art Institute in
Los Angeles, admitted on a full scholarship when he was
only fifteen years old. He was intent on becoming a painter
but wandered into the “pot shop” in the school’s basement
one day and encountered Peter Voulkos. He left the can-

As one turns the vessel around, the narrative appears

vas (at least the traditional one) and became one of the

to shift and morph. One never really sees the same

most talented of the so-called “Otis Clay” artists, a group

thing twice, not because anything actually changes, but

that included Ken Price, John Mason, and Paul Soldner.

The Hootkins' home.

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