2010 Signature Edition Series

While some artists have an additional profession outside of their field, it is rather unusual for a practicing, full-time physician, such as Eric Avery to work with equal passion and dedication to making art. Avery’s artistic practice is intimately linked with his medical concerns. Trained in medicine and psychiatry, Avery worked with Vietnamese refugees in northern Indonesia, and as a medical director of a refugee camp in Somalia in the early 1980s. He ultimately settled in Texas where he has been practicing medicine while using his artistic output to raise awareness about pressing social issues. Silence equals death, as one of the early mottoes of the gay-rights-activist group Act Up once warned.

His provocative images frequently appropriate from famous works of art such as Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon, but he also adapts imagery from old master prints of medical subjects. In the last few decades his artistic endeavors have included a performance component in which he essentially runs clinics in his art installations, testing visitors for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, and other infectious diseases.

The first block for this print Fourteen Infections of Adam and Eve is printed with yellow ochre, the second block printed with green umber and the third block is black key. The fourth block is a text block printed with burnt Umber ink.

Eric Avery lives and works in Galveston, Texas.

Read more about Eric Avery's project for Philagrafika 2010 here.

For purchase information please contact: Rebecca Mott at rmott@philagrafika.org or call 215-701-8057.