Featured Artist: Erik Otto

This Spring we are fortunate enough to feature the artwork of Erik Otto: an artist, graphic designer, and art director born and raised in the South Bay Area. He is a graduate from San Jose State University, where he studied Illustration and Animation. After graduation, Otto moved to San Francisco, to be a part of the fast paced art and design environment a bigger city provides. He has since worked with companies such as Urban Outfitters, Old Navy, Jansport, Wells Fargo, and HBO and recently was awarded the Jury Prize at Cut & Paste’s Digital Design Tournament for 2007.


Otto’s personal artwork is exhibited in galleries nationally and is represented by Shooting Gallery in San Francisco.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I consider myself a process artist and it is often during the act of scavenging for materials that I meditate and develop the concepts for the work I am about to create. I often leave the initial stages of my work open and uncertain while intuitively working out a resolution that will decide its final outcome based on the suggestive qualities of the medium and materials at hand.
Through my artwork and installations, I am narrating an autobiographical story that depicts the struggle to connect my awakened state to the desires found within. Pulling from what builds me as well as what tries to destroy me, my goal is that through my work, I may find peace in creating and questioning my own existence. In a world that seems to have fallen apathetic in wanting to make a difference, my hope is that my artwork is an honest reminder of the importance of dreams and the necessity of living a life of significance.

We love Erik, and know you will too!
Come by to see his creations hanging from April through May.
More information can be seen at www.erikotto.com or check out the art on threads at www.newleafclothing.com or www.blog.newleafclothing.com!