In the highly fragmented art world of the 21st century where ideas and concepts seem often more important than the actual physical manifestation of said idea, naturalistic, figurative art like Erin's plays a special role. In a truly 'post post-modern', feminist approach her work transcends traditional categorization and leverages elements from symbolism, expressionism, art nouveau and post-modernism to create her own unique visual language and iconography.

Erin's art frequently portrays female figures from mythology, fairy tales and folk myths - ranging from Valkyries and witches to chimeras and harpies - as empowered female heroes in their own right. Erin cleverly plays with these stories and myths which have been - and still are - so important for humans to help us make sense of the world we live in, a world that so often seems confusing and nonsensical.

The women in her portraits are oftentimes based on photos of real models she finds in women's magazines who are then transformed into empowered mythological 'sheroes' in her artwork. Many times these women are semi-nude, but like a Greek statue's 'heroic nudity' this is not an eroticized depiction of the female body to satisfy the male gaze. Their nudity conveys an authentic, natural feminine power that challenges the patriarchal definition of heroism.

Erin's depiction of women is influenced by the portraits of Viennese expressionist painter Egon Schiele. Schiele leaves behind Art Nou veau's aesthetically pleasing, but very often superficial portrayals of women, which gave the viewer very little sense of the subjects' personality and inner world. The American Curator Jane Kallir even compares Gustav Klimt's women to 'birds in golden cages'. Schiele, on the other hand, aims to reveal and express a woman's emotional state through his portraits, a theme that deeply resonates throughout Erin's work as well.

Erin's portraits - like Schiele's - tend to be flat and provide little to no context about the physical and geographical setting. It seems as if the subjects existed in an ephemeral dimension outside of space and time. However, her women rarely face us alone. They are accompanied by plants, flowers and animals that help us place the subjects within their mythological context and at the same time introduce a psychological and emotional narrative to the artwork.

While men in traditional heroic portraits carry swords and other symbols and emblems of power and dominance, Erin' female heroes seem to become one with the natural and spiritual world. As in the myths that inspire her work, the boundaries between women and animals and occasionally plants) seem fluid. This combination of the familiar with the unfamiliar creates a sense of Freudian 'uncanniness' in her portraits that unsettles and challenges the viewer.

In that regard, one could easily see parallels to symbolist painter Odilon Redon's (1840-1916) work and particularly his illustrations for Gustave Flaubert's The Temptation of St Anthony. Redon's work was rooted in nature, but has a dreamlike, imaginative quality to it. In 1894 he wrote: "There is a certain style of drawing that the imagination has liberated from the embarrassing concern of real details in order that it might freely serve only as the representation of conceived things."

Erin comfortably works in multiple mediums, but the majority of her work are drawings, illustrations and paintings. While her works on paper and canvas share similar subject matters and iconography, they also reflect Erin's mastery in leveraging the unique creative opportunities of each medium to its full potential.

In her drawings and illustrations Erin works predominantly in black and white and is very strategic about her use of color. Her works show an immense confidence in the power of the drawn line - there is no doubt, no wavering. Just like her subjects her lines are absolute and non-negotiable in their presence on paper.

Looking at her drawings the work of Czech artist and illustrator Alphonse Mucha's (1860-1939) comes to mind. However, while Erin shares some elements with Mucha's and Art Nouveau's visual iconography, when we take a closer look we see that Erin simultaneously reinterpretes and elevates these elements through a con temporary, feminist approach. In her work, natural elements do not just provide a decorative and ornamental framework for her strong and empowered women, but instead convey an underlying narrative and provide psychological depth and meaning.

Whereas Erin's drawings and illustrations are very limited in color, her often large-scale paintings are the opposite: There she lever ages strong intense colors - thus creating a powerful background and screen for her subjects. Her very deliberate choice of colors and color schemes adds another symbolic and narrative layer of meaning to the women she portrays.

Like her drawings, her paintings' backgrounds tend to be flat with tle spatial context. At the same time the women, animals and plants are very detailed and realistic, which creates an interesting juxtaposition of spatial dimensions and forces the viewer's eye - and mind - to focus their gaze on the female subjects and their companions. All of these companions - every animal, every plant, every object - in Erin's work carries meaning on a cultural, mythological as well as on an individual level - Very often allowing the viewer to come up with their own versions and interpretations of the paintings' visual narrative.

Regardless of the medium Erin works in, the layers of symbolism and the strong narrative context in her work takes the viewer on a journey of discovery and exploration.

Mag. Martina Lipp