see below

Artist Statement


Erik Groff is a self-taught artist who is known for transforming refuse into colorful site

specific installations inspired by abandoned scraps of urban life. As with many artists, it

is difficult to categorize Groff’s multifaceted creativity, except through historical

chronology. Beginning as a studio artist working primarily in oils and other painting

mediums, his artistic voice and contributions found an audience outside the gallery art

scene through the abandonment of the studio art tradition.

Often dismissed by the casual onlooker as overtly whimsical or naïve, Groff’s work has

served to bridge the expanding void between ‘respectable’ gallery art and the underground

urban art scene usually referred to as ‘street’ or ‘graffiti art’. By pushing the frontiers

of urban expression beyond spray painted stencils and wall pasted icons, his work offers an

insurgent bolt of energy to the viewer, while simultaneously commenting on the crux of a

modernized society locked into ever deepening cycles of over consumption. Groff tends to

employ almost any manner of waste necessary to prove his point, and serves as an

inspirational springboard within an emerging art form, which seeks to comment on our

environment, politics, and history –enriching the cultural, and critical value of art made

from discarded materials.