This painting is based on an 8 x10 color photograph of Ericsson’s mother, taken by his father in Atlanta, Georgia in 1977. 

It is the artist’s first painting since 2002. According to Ericsson, “the thing that helped me begin and even finish the painting, among many things, was Arshile Gorky’s Painting, The Artist and His Mother 1926–c. 1936 the same version in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. I kept reproductions of it and studies he made for it taped to the wall beside me as I worked. I’ve known and loved that painting since my early twenties. Gorky also used a photographic reference, and also depicted himself as a child with his deceased mother. Gorky died by suicide. And his mother, a refugee, starved to death. Since we can’t control many of the horrible things that might happen to us, what we do have and to a degree what we can take hold of and leave to those who come after us, is our stories. Which is why I write this here, there’s a story to be unearthed, a life and lives to be unearthed and considered, because it is true what Socrates was thought to have said the unexamined life is not worth living.