Erik Andler

Passionate about physics, science and painting. Interested in time, especially when it is related to physics and cognitive psychology. As a child, Erik Andler wonders about the planets, the stars, the vastness of the universe and the passage of time. The artist immerses himself in the mysteries of matter, studies the formation and extinction of stars and seeks to understand the origin and expansion of the universe. Fascinated by the movement of the hands of a Comtoise clock and counting the seconds and minutes, Erik Andler is also amazed by the physical phenomena that can be observed. He spends hours scanning the sky and trying to understand what are the forces that build and nourish the universe. But another passion inhabits him: painting, which he perceives as a living being between two worlds, that of matter charged with vibrations and the world that Goethe would call "spiritual". During a trip to New York, the artist meets On Kawara and is then upset. After a period of reflection, Erik Andler began painting as an autodidact by formally reappropriating the pictorial aesthetic of On Kawara's Date Paintings. He begins to paint on paper first. It seems obvious to the artist that the data of time, metaphysics, physics and astrophysics can be brought together in the same work. The artist then begins his work on the linearity of time. He proposes, like Newton, to observe a physical phenomenon through a date. He then produced the FEB 29 2004 black paint. This date of February 29 will be available in several series. This date returning every 4 years, the artist decides to paint each date on four different canvases but each of a different color (black, blue, red and yellow). Erik Andler chooses his colors in a methodical and scientific way. Indeed, the artist uses, in the background of the canvas, the white of the white light of the stars. For the date, the colors used are black - the dominant color in the universe, which is the absence of light - or one of the colors that we find after defragmentation of white light through Newton's prism. The date is revealed by the defragmentation of the white light represented by the background of the canvas. In general, the graphic form of a date is declined in series of 2 to 4 canvases painted in a different color in order to express a moment that can be lived and felt in a different way according to the individuals. Time is therefore a tool that reveals mental processes such as attention, perception, reasoning or even memory. Erik Andler uses the form of the date defined by the international standard ISO 8601. This standard specifies the numerical representation of the date and time - respectively based on the Gregorian calendar and the 24-hour time system. This notation, created in 1988, is intended to avoid any risk of confusion in international communications due to the large number of different regional notations. It also has many advantages for computer use over other notations. In September 2016, following a reflection made during his trip to Barcelona, the artist began to work on the non-linearity of time. That is to say, the relativity of time. New questions then arise from his new paintings.