Erik Hougen “Future Perfect”

Planthouse

[Image: Erik Hougen "Emerald Shadows, 201" Screenprint and Archival Inkjet on paper Edition of 5 24 x 38 in.]

This event has ended.

In English grammar, the future perfect tense expresses actions or events that will be completed in the future – ones that are not yet complete. As a phrase, however, Future Perfect can be interpreted in a variety of ways.

Most of us are constantly striving to complete goals, take action, and become the ideal version of ourselves. The perfect outcomes of events we imagine are present in the future. The future will perpetually be “perfect,” because when we arrive there, the events leading up to our arrival will have already happened. The present is “perfect” as well, due to its unchangeable and permanent nature.

Today, our world is overwhelmed with turbulence – be it the state of our environment or our political system. It feels as though the decisions we make today will have a more tangible effect on our future than ever before. Because of the pressing nature of this turbulence, it feels like the future is drawing closer.

A motif often employed in Hougen’s work is present here in the exhibition: Tektites. These black rocks are formed on earth under the extreme pressure and heat a meteorite exerts as it makes an impact. Throughout history, tektites and other black rocks have been perceived as mystical and as possessing some kind of power. Indeed, these rocks serve as a stark reminder of our existence fragile state.

Hougen’s compositions take photographic elements from different sources and are blended in a nearly seamless manner. These unrelated images from the past have been composed to be perfect in the future.

Erik Hougen (b. 1982) was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, and now lives and works in New York City. He graduated from Pratt Institute with his MFA in 2008. Recently, Hougen was a resident with the Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) program at the Bronx Museum, and a SIP Fellow at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in New York City. Hougen has had exhibitions with the Bronx Museum, the International Print Center of New York, Kunsthalle Galapagos in Brooklyn, and the Vaughn Massey Projects in New York City. Hougen was also a finalist in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, which opened at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. in March 2013.

Today, Hougen is the artist in residence at Kunsthalle Galapagos in Brooklyn, NY. Additionally, Hougen is a Master Printer and Intaglio instructor at the Lower East Side Printshop in New York City, as well as a visiting Graduate Printmaking Professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.