Central to the exhibition are two portraits: One of Sue and another of Tom, one, which shows a young woman aging, the other expresses a young man searching for his voice as she does. "ALL MY LOVE ALWAYS NO MATTER WHAT" is a portrait of the artist’s mother in the form of a 7 Volume book work consisting of letters and recordings to her only son. “SAD YOUNG MAN ON A TRAIN” is a self-portrait composed of 107 paintings (1992-2002), reconsidered as a singular work in 2022. When combined, they produce an overarching portrait of filial love, grief, joy and existential crisis. "CRACKLE & DRAG" is 47-minute film poem of biographical vignettes, narrated by recordings Sue left on Tom’s answering machine as she struggled with addiction, poverty and chronic illnesses. The exhibition also features the first paintings TR Ericsson has made since 2002 and an epic dream print titled "TOM & SUE," which combines the unusual materials of funerary ash, Long Island Ice Tea, and cigarette burns with graphite and resin.
TR Ericsson (b. 1972, US) was born in Cleveland, Ohio and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Painesville, OH. For the past 20 years, he has expanded on an investigation and reinterpretation of a deteriorating archive of family artifacts, documents, writings, and photographs. His ongoing project 'Crackle & Drag', makes a personal struggle public, coming to terms with the archive’s power to determine the past and the future, even as it vanishes in time. Many works in this project are made with unusual materials including nicotine, alcohol and funerary ash. Ericsson’s nicotine portraits were recently recognized by the Smithsonian Museum as a finalist in The National Portrait Gallery's triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. His ash works appear in numerous private and public collections as, according to the artist “I am in the process of not only spreading my mother’s ashes into private and institutional frameworks but more importantly spreading her life story. She was uniquely able to receive others, to listen and provide comfort in the harshest and most difficult moments of personal pain. I consider every work I’ve made about her, or of her, as a symbol of her love, devotion and selflessness. Lessons our world desperately needs." Ericsson's work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and many other prestigious public and private collections. His books and zines can be found in numerous library collections including the Yale University Arts Library, the Museum of Modern Art Library, and the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.