“It is not an image I am seeking. It’s not an idea. It is an emotion you want to recreate, an emotion of wanting, of giving, and of destroying.”
Louise Bourgeois

Erika Gofton makes work that is deeply personal.  Occasionally uneasy, at times rigid with anxiety and often tinged with melancholia.  Gofton interrogates what it is to be human, as self but also in connection to others. What is her identity within these relationships as mother, friend, wife, daughter, sister. How does memory and time operate within these relationships?

During Covid she reached out to the people in her life that she missed deeply, requesting they send a photo. The process and the slow and intimate act of witnessing and connecting through drawing, was the intention. Drawing each person into existence, was a deeply comforting and meditative experience.  With a desire to slow time down and bear witness to the moment, allowed for a deeper conversation about her personal connections and relationships, in particular the profound impact the women in her life have had on shaping the person that she is. As she drew each person She reflected on what these individuals had taught her and in particular how the women in her life had an influence on the person she is.

Creating each delicate frame slowly by hand continued the meditation. Echoing the 19th-century tradition of Lovers Eyes and Miniatures, intimate gifts given within families and to loved ones. Choosing to Work with porcelain for its paradoxical blend of strength and fragility, further embodying the complex tension inherent in all human relationships.