Erin Bodfish is a painter, florist, and writer based in Central Oregon. Through the intersection of her writing and painting practice, Bodfish weaves together a history of grief, memory, and presence of the body in an emotive landscape. Bodfish received her Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Oregon State University along with a Minor in Applied Visual Arts. As a Merit Scholar, she completed her dual Masters of Fine Arts in Visual Studies and Masters of Arts in Critical Studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Bodfish is currently an instructor of Art and Art History at Oregon State-Cascades in Bend, OR.
Grief is felt in the body, as real as any injury. It is a heaviness, a physical ache formed. It is something that is ephemeral, fleeting in its presence, and yet able to permanently effect change. I feel this presence of grief within my own body. Its permanent alteration of the makeup of my form. It is a scar tissue that has healed over itself time and time again.
Through the mourning of my past selves, of love once lost, my paintings come into existence. These paintings reflect a rebirth, a coming to terms with departure, and a love returning that I thought lost. I have pieced myself back together, one fragment at a time, finding beauty in the sharpness of my edges, and a relief in being able to settle into soft spaces once again. I capture this through my mark making, through the suffusion of color throughout my works, and an interruption of a traditional viewing format to engage the viewer in an intimate way. I work on a large scale in order to capture the breadth of these feelings of grief—where I shed my former self, emerging anew in my own love.
With the use of both live and dried floral matter sculpted alongside these works, the concept of memento mori is represented—a reminder of death and the temporality of life. This temporality can apply to the fleeting nature of relationships, but their everlasting effect. One of rebirth and death. My paintings and floral sculptures express the process of grieving while seeking to understand a new reality. Smaller works within my portfolio act as vanitas—or vanities. These are capturings of fleeting moments of reflection, fragments of self and past loves, abstracting their presence as we let them go. I draw from my family heritage in the floral industry. By using dried and live floral matter in my work, I address the temporality of the human condition. This ephemerality, deeply beautiful in its essence, serves as a reminder to always seek moments of presence.
