When the pandemic hit, Eric Anthony Berdis moved back to his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, where the artist eventually found work as an early learning teacher. But stepping back into a classroom in the place where he grew up forced Berdis to reconcile with the grade school bullying that they said was an unfortunate part of their upbringing.
“Being a teacher, I’ve also had to relive my own trauma of being bullied as a queer person,” Berdis said in an early June interview at 934 Gallery, which will feature the artist’s work alongside that of Janelle Bonfour-Mikes, and Liz Morrison . “I’m very lucky that I teach in a space that is very accepting, and that I teach children that are really resilient and developing. But I’ve taught children whose parents were my bullies. … I’m very child centered, and I don’t hold grudges. But it’s funny when I recognize a last name and it’s like, ‘Oh, you’re that person.’”
These realizations surfaced at the same time Berdis began to experiment with making their own paper – a byproduct of landing a studio in the same space as the print and papermaking retailer Grounded Print Shop – which informed a series of eight ghostly, yearbook-inspired paintings that serve as one of the exhibit’s focal points.
The pieces began with Berdis creating pulp from shredded materials, which he then combined with colorants and embedded with flowers, insects, and other collaged materials before pressing them to create thick sheets. Atop this he painted abstracted childhood portraits of the kids who served as his early tormentors, their images further masked under a layer of abaca fiber.
“And that second layer of material really made the surface … ghostly, in this abstract way,” said Berdis, who described himself as “a materialist,” in that he often takes initial inspiration from raw materials, identifying more broadly as a maker than a painter, a textile artist or a quilter. “And I’m not an expert, so you can see places where [the abaca] is ripped. But I’ve been enjoying learning this process.”
This balance between trauma and playfulness features in all of the works Berdis has on display at 934, including a trio of colorful fabric sculptures they created by quilting together thrifted clothes, old bed sheets and other second-hand fabrics with some built-in history. “Bed sheets, even when they’ve been washed, there’s an intimacy to them,” Berdis said.
But taking in these colorful assemblages, darker details gradually emerge – a twisted knot of pink fabric guts spilling from one, and another concealing a pile of discarded paper planes filled with wilted and rotting flowers that read like the remains of a long-neglected memorial.
Berdis said some of their earliest fabric sculptures emerged as they reckoned with the lingering specter of the AIDS crisis, with the artist imagining sections of the AIDS quilt becoming animated and taking on a ghostly, human-like form.
For the works on display in 934, he started to unpack another tragedy, working through fears rooted in the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was beaten, tortured and left to die on the side of the road near the city of Laramie. Shepard’s body was first discovered by a passing bicyclist, who initially mistook the young man for a scarecrow.
“And I started thinking about the scarecrow as a form of trauma, and a launching point for this work,” Berdis said. “And then there are references to the body throughout – appendages and arms, and guts spilling out. … I don’t always need the surprises to be joyful. So, as you’re walking through, you have the color and the material and the sequins, and the way things are all put together, and it’s like you tripped into this party, like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then it’s like, ‘Oh, there are body parts.’”
For Berdis, the act of creation has over time become a form of healing, allowing them to hold claim to a space where they are able to make the work they want to see in the world. Part of this, Berdis said, involves learning how to let go, with the artist taking increased inspiration from the 3- to 6-year-olds who populate their classroom.
“They have this reckless abandon towards art that is really special,” Berdis said. “With the children I teach, their approach to art is special, and it’s so immediately intertwined with play. Their artmaking and play are the work. And that idea, for me, is really rewarding. I really like to think of my studio as this place of play.”
