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BIOGRAPHY
Bruce
Erikson started college at the age of twenty-three after playing in
a rock band and working five years as a pruner and grafter in a commercial
orchard, forklift driver in a window factory and several consolidation
companies, a water truck driver for a paving crew, ice cream delivery
driver, illustrator and as a straightener setup mechanic in a steel
mill with his father. He graduated magna cum laude from the University
Honor’s Program with a BFA degree in Drawing and with minors in
Art History and Classical Guitar performance from Edinboro University
of Pennsylvania in 1996. While at Edinboro he studied at the Illustration
Academy in Kansas City, MO under Mark English, Chris Payne, Gary Kelley and other noted illustrators while doing magazine and trial illustration
for such clients as Cleveland Magazine, Andrews McMeel Publishing and
others.
In 1996 he took a year off and worked in a hospital answering phones
and moving bodies in a morgue before enrolling at Indiana University-
Bloomington where he pursued an MFA degree in Painting. While at Indiana
University, he received a fellowship to study in Florence, Italy. Since
graduation he has taught at numerous universities including Kendall
College of Art and Design, Grand Rapids, MI; University of Illinois
at Champaign Urbana, IL; and Washington University in St. Louis, MO
where he was the drawing coordinator of the foundation program and taught
at painting and drawing at Santa Reparata in Florence, Italy. For two years he was a visiting assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, PA where he taught drawing, anatomy, and painting.
He spent 2005-06 as an assistant professor at Juniata College in Huntingdon,
PA before relocating to Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. At Xavier he teaches drawing and painting while writing and
recording original music on the side with good friend Greg Filer under the moniker of Geronimo Rhombus.
In the summer of 2005 Bruce won "Best in Show" at Fraser Gallery's Georgetown
International in Washington, DC and had a solo exhibition in January 2006. He took second place in painting at
the State Museum of Pennsylvania's "Art of the State 2005"
in Harrisburg, PA. He has had numerous solo and juried exhibitions including
Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI; Brad Cooper
Gallery, Tampa, FL; Fraser Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Afif Gallery,
Philadelphia, PA; SUNY- Geneseo, Geneseo, NY; tudio 4 West, Piermont,
NY; St. Louis Artists' Guild and St, Louis Community College- Meramec
both in St. Louis, MO; Glass Grower's Gallery, Erie, PA; William Jewel
College, Liberty, MO; Ohio Northern University, Ada, OH; Lock Haven
University, Lock Haven, PA; Ferris State University, Grand Rapids, MI;
Cinema Art, Urbana, IL; Denison University, Granville, OH; Hoyt Institue
of Fine Arts, New Castle, PA; Palos Verdes Art Center, Rancho Palos
Verdes, CA; Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, PA; Tennessee Tech University,
Cookeville, TN; Period Gallery, Lincoln, NE., and Penn State University
Altoona, PA.
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