Iris Eichenberg: X

Artist list

Iris Eichenberg

Iris Eichenberg’s new series of work, presented under the intriguingly annoying title ”X,” at first sight appears to continue the artist’s persistent fascination with the face, the human face, and to inscribe itself in the traditional genre of “portrait painting.” Rather than suggesting the possibility of faces emerging, appearing, presenting themselves to the viewer, as they did in earlier series of Eichenberg’s work--in the two-dimensional forms of mirrors, silver ovals, porcelain medallions--these three-dimensional objects show us human heads in the process of their own disappearance; their features seem to be fading away. Clearly recognizable as heads, some of these objects are made of wood covered in steel nails, hermetically hammered into their surface so that the underlying base has become invisible. Others are made of unglazed white porcelain, with faint facial features pressed into their rough surface by an obviously powerful, relentless thumb. Yet others--robust black leather bulbous shapes that evoke the feel and force of boxing gloves--owe their recognizability as heads largely to the context in which they appear: a multitude of head-shaped objects, sometimes coupled, sometimes solo, that impress themselves on us in their ineradicable, almost violent presence, in their singularity, distinctness, and materiality. At the same time, and, ineluctably, their fading features and sealed-off surfaces also eerily confront us with the inscrutability, the opaqueness, and the evanescence of any “portrait”--whether two-or three-dimensional.
- Renée C. Hoogland 

The work of Iris Eichenberg speaks of fleeting memories, glimpses into familial origin and the lingering reminders of past intimacies or emotional scars… exact details may be blurred within the fog of time, but the experiences no less formative to the personal narrative (whether the artist’s or the observer’s) ascribed within the context of Eichenberg’s work.
 
Born 1965 in Germany, Eichenberg currently holds the title of Head of the Metalsmithing Department at the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan) since 2007.  Having brought her philosophically European approach to (jewelry) design/art with her into the educational curriculum, she is credited with the rapid transformation of the Cranbrook program, bringing it back to its one-time stature as one of the top American masters programs in the field- elevating not only the Cranbrook school but with it the entire jewelry scene in the United States.  Eichenberg was formerly the head of the Jewelry Department at the reknowned Gerrit Rietveld Academie (NL), and has held numerous workshops and lectures internationally.  Works of Iris Eichenberg can be found in important public collections worldwide and Iris Eichenberg has been represented by Ornamentum since 2006.  X will be Iris Eichenberg’s fourth solo exhibition with Ornamentum.