About Me

Making art has always been an integral part of Eric’s life/work.  As a teenager living in New York City in the 1970s, he learned the art of silk-screen printing from a local artist, designing and producing posters for community organizations in the East Village.  Another mentor of his was an artist who was determined to teach teenagers about conceptual art.  Most of the kids didn’t get it but it stuck with Eric.  The idea of incorporating the viewers as part of the art driven by a concept was fascinating to him and would continue to influence his life/work.

 

In college at Cornell, he took painting classes while being an engineering major.  While working as an engineer at Corning, New York, he exhibited his works in silk screen and monotypes at a local gallery, producing enough work to have a couple of solo shows.

 

In the 1980s, he studied photography and multi-media production at the Catholic University of Lyon, France. He returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts to get a master degree in theology.  While there, he helped create an artist community which put on a monthly art show at the seminary library.  Combining conceptual art and installation he created an annual solo exhibit of photographs, monotypes on glass and a multi-media installation incorporating his music and photo projection.

 

Working in Los Angeles in the 1990-2000s, he used the installation art form to engage diverse communities to explore community concerns such as racism, discrimination, and sustainability.   One of his most important work during this period is Photolanguage:Interactions which is a temporary installation of 48 black and white photographs creating a space for brave and insightful dialogue.  Hundreds of Photolanguage:Interactions has been acquired by people who had been trained to do the installation.  At any given week, there is someone offering a Photolanguage installation to create community dialogue across the U.S. and Canada. 

 

From the 2000s on, working with his brother, Horatio Hung-Yan Law, also an installation artist and photographer, they created many more community-based temporary installations involving local community members in the making, installing and experiencing of the community-enhancing work they helped create. 

 

Since his retirement in 2021 from running the Kaleidoscope Institute, a non-profit that he founded, Eric has been able to devote more time to making art and music.  As a singer-songwriter, he has released 3 new albums of original songs - Up-Side-Down Town, Better Angels and Recreate (https://erichflaw.hearnow.com/) As a member of the Artists Council in Palm Desert, CA, Eric had presented smaller scale conceptual installations that create spaces around the wall pieces with which the viewers were invited to interact, engaging their minds and bodies, becoming part of the art. One of his pieces titled: Photolanguage:Community was the winner of 2022 Artists Council Juried Show.

 

For the 50th anniversary of the City of the Palm Desert celebration on November 18, 2023, he created a 8 foot tall - 40 feet long installation with hundreds of photographs from the community at the Civic Center Park. (See photos of the Tell Board Project in the Portfolio.) He hopes to create more art pieces that engage and build local communities in the coming years.