"Medel captures the vibrancy of his eastside neighborhood in works that range from intimate snapshots to expansive street scenes, always with the aim of distilling and preserving the ephemeral feelings and fleeing moments that make up a thriving community. These works also celebrate a bustling street culture that has suffered a summer of ICE raids and unrest, which has stolen a sense of security that will be slow to return."
"Medel's medium is fiber - he "paints" with a sewing machine on dark, heavy gauge denim, intuitively selecting color from a wall-sized bank of threads. The deep denim support enhances color by contrast, lending Medel's compositions a quiet luminosity. Denim also brings to the work its long association with labor and its origins as a sturdy fabric developed to protect the bodies of workers. More personally, denim recalls the protective wear used by the artist's father in his work as a gardener."
Erick Medel captures Eastside Los Angeles life in works ranging from intimate snapshots to expansive street scenes that distill ephemeral feelings and fleeting moments of community. The works celebrate bustling street culture while acknowledging a summer of ICE raids and unrest that weakened a sense of security. Medel preserves small joys and hidden beauties as reservoirs of hope. Medel "paints" with a sewing machine on heavy gauge denim, intuitively selecting colors from a large bank of threads and using denim's contrast to enhance quiet luminosity. Denim references labor and the artist's father's protective gardening wear while supporting layered stitching for depth and shading. Medel experiments with abstraction, turning backgrounds into interlocking color blocks influenced by abstract figuration history.
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