Echo Eggebrecht paints smartly. Her focus is on content and narrative, as opposed to language, and within that context she enters a world of double-meaning and ironic presenations. The above painting "Nick in Time" (2004) refers to the carvings on trees, made permanent even as the lovers have come and gone, and then gone for good. Also, with the throw-back to realism and landscape painting, perhaps that too was a 'nick in time'? Thirdly, there is a remix quality here, an old thing editted and presented again, and the old and new meanings form a third meaning: human alteration of the natural world.
I may be reading too much (no such thing as too much)-- but I do so because Eggebrecht brings it on. The ironic ambiguity in her work is between the narrative picture and what we know to be true of the world. She knows this, of course and plays with this ambiguity, pushing it further one way or the other. Sometimes the ambiguity, the punch line, lies in the title, a play of the meaning of a word and its visual equivalent. The painting below is entitled "Stars and Stripes" (2004):
Eggebrecht has had two solo shows in NYC, first at SixtySeven Gallery in 2004 and then last year at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, October 21 - November 25, 2006. Hopefully more to come.
