Waterbury, CT…  Contemporary realist painter Eric Forstmann moves effortlessly between still life painting and depictions of the landscape in the Mattatuck Museum exhibition Everything/Nothing: Paintings by Eric Forstmann.  The solo-show opens with an artist reception Sunday, March 3, 2013 from 2:00-4:00 p.m. at the museum.

Eric Forstmann’s work celebrates images of the everyday and takes inspiration from painters before him garnering comparisons to such luminaries as 17th-century Dutch artist Jan Vermeer to 20th-century American realist Edward Hopper.  Forstmann finds brilliance in conventional and unconventional subjects; painting ordinary objects that appear so real that one could reach out and touch them.  Scale varies in Forstmann’s work. Some still life paintings are the size of a page while his urban street scenes may reach to six-feet.  His art reflects its time and responds to its place as he makes numerous references to contemporary life in his scenes of both the urban and rural landscape around his home in northwestern Connecticut and the nearby Hudson Valley.  

Everything/Nothing is the title of one of Forstmann’s trompe l’oeil works. Its subject is a rumpled and creased irregularly-shaped piece of brown paper that is suspended on a blank wall by a push-pin at each top corner. The title refers to the mysterious questions—What is everything? What is nothing?

Born in 1962, Forstmann studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University. His works can be found in many private and public collections, including The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; The Evansville Art Museum, Evansville, IN; The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; and the New Jersey Center of the Visual Arts, Summit, NJ.

The exhibition, on view through Sunday, May 19, 2013, will be accompanied by programs examining the origins of still life painting from ancient Egypt and Greece, to its development in 17th century Netherlands, and its re-emergence in late 19th century American art. Painters of the urban scene and the Connecticut landscape will also be explored in special programs.

Visit www.MattatuckMuseum.org or call (203) 753-0381 for more information on all of the museum’s adult and children’s programs, events and exhibits. The Mattatuck Museum is operated with support from the Connecticut Department of Economic & Community Development, CT Office of the Arts which also receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and is a member of the Connecticut Art Trail, a group of 16 world-class museums and historic sites (www.arttrail.org). Located at 144 West Main Street, Waterbury, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. Free parking is located behind the building on Park Place.