“Signtologist” Dan Ericson paints monochromatic portraits of his favorite rap artists on old traffic signs. His paintings resemble stencils, the kind of sophisticated pictorial graffiti you sometimes catch on concrete walls, though Ericson is quick to point out that he is no graffiti artist, and that once a sign is painted, it does not reappear on the street. “I’ve had friends go to jail for graffiti,” he says.
Like many an artistic epiphany, Ericson’s signature use of old signs began as a mistake. He was taking a course in painting at Arapahoe Community College and was working on a series of four portraits. “I messed up the last canvas,” he says. “It was supposed to be a painting of Ice Cube. But the perspective was off and the lines were all wrong.”
The project was due the next day, and it was too late to go out and buy another canvas. Rummaging around in the carport, Ericson found a No Parking sign. “It was old and faded," he says. "I decided to paint on that. I turned it in the next day and got a D on it. It didn’t make sense. I mean, three canvases and a No Parking sign?”
He destroyed the three canvases, but kept the sign. “It was kind of cool,” he says. “There was something unique about it. I started dabbling with it, painting portraits of the musicians I was listening to at the time.”
Pretty soon, friends were dropping by with old signs for him to paint on. He began going to government auctions, and cultivating relationships with the various municipalities around Denver to get their scrapped street signs. “This gave me access to how signs are made,” he says. “I started picking up bits of reflective material and adding them back into the paintings.”
A major turning point came as he was rendering a portrait of rapper Biggie Smalls on a bullet- riddled Stop sign some friends had been using for target practice. (Smalls was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1997). “It showed me that I could use the message of the sign as a commentary on the subject,” Ericson says. “That was really the piece where I found my voice.” The painting was picked up by a hip hop mag called XXL and reproduced in its December 2007 issue.
Ericson makes it a point to give away much of his art to the musicians who have inspired him. In fact, his paintings often serve as an oversized backstage pass, getting him past Security to talk to the musicians in person. “It’s like completing the circle of inspiration,” he says. “They’ve inspired me, and the paintings inspire them.” Ludacris, Spike Lee, John Legend, Sting, Nelly Furtado, and Cee-Lo Green all own works by the Wash Park artist.
The sobriquet “Signtologist,” was a gift from Black Thought, lead singer of the Roots. “He wrote it on the sleeve of a CD and I asked him if I could use it,” Ericson recalls. “He needed a ride to his hotel, so we made a deal.”
Equally intriguing as his art, is the manner in which Ericson shows and markets it. Imagine walking into a stark white gallery with nothing but QR Codes on the walls. (QR Codes, in case you didn’t know, are those ubiquitous little black boxes you’ve been seeing on billboards, magazine ads, and websites. Encoded in them are all sorts of interesting data: text, URLs, and in Ericson’s case, photos of his work. You read them by means of a scanner in your smart phone). Last Summer Ericson mounted a show at the Mac Spa on Wynkoop in which gallery goers were invited to scan wall mounted QR Codes to see the art. “It was totally digital.” enthuses Ericson. “An artless art show. No more lugging heavy signs around. We had it set up so you could click on PayPal, buy it on the spot, and have it sent directly to your home.”
An artless art show? We'll call it a sign of the times.
Dan Ericson teams up with five other local artists to create the Puzzle Piece Project, at City Hall, 1144 Broadway, Thursday, January 26th.
__________________________________________
For more information
Puzzel Piece Project
___________________________________________
Click on ‘Subscribe’ at top of page for free email notification whenever a new article is published.
Comments