Artist Spotlight: Erin K

This month the artist spotlight is on Erin K., one of our Artwork Specialists. Erin is a part of the Creative Services team, helping customers take their t-shirt ideas to the next level with pre-order design assistance!

Since she was a little girl, Erin has always wanted to be an artist and create fun and beautiful things. When I asked her what inspires her work she said, “colors.”

“I almost always start my paintings with layers of color and let the subject matter come to me,” she explained. But, for these paintings, her inspiration started with a favorite song: “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 2” by the Flaming Lips. Erin and her sister love that song, so she told her sister she would paint her fighting a pink robot. The rest of the paintings are of random ideas that come to Erin as she paints.  She enjoys giving the audience a glimpse inside her mind. As she says, “There are so many crazy ideas running around in there, I just want to bring the viewer into my world and let them get out of it what they choose.”

For me, the contrast of the brightly colored robots in the gritty, gloomy environment makes me sympathize with the robots. Robots are often depicted as evil, but in Erin’s work, they are victims of their surroundings, and of foes that are typically lovable. I like that I can see her process in the layering of colors and black washes for the background, which help the lively subjects pop to the foreground. As Erin herself says, “There is no big message behind the work.” She paints for fun and hopes the audience has fun seeing it!