Eichenberg's art is all about "The Details"
Art exhibit explores light, illusion, culture, commercialism
Jeff Ventrella
Issue date: 1/29/09 Section: Arts

Inside a Habana Gold cigar box, a plastic toy cow poses atop two foam blocks, casting its shadow against a night sky as it looks down upon crayons and other children's toys.

Or so it seems.

In actuality, the bedtime-themed piece, "Night Night Cow," is only an optical illusion. There are no blocks or toys - just paint in the bottom of the box.

Sunday, the Daughtrey Gallery opened with Toledo, Ohio artist David Eichenberg's newest collection, "In the Details," featuring portraits, still-life paintings, sculptures and mixtures of sculpture and painting from his last few years of work.

Prominent among the featured pieces, cigar box paintings exhibit the artistic technique of "trompe l' oeil" (pronounced trump-loy), meaning "to fool the eye." With scrupulous attention to lighting and shadow inside the boxes, Eicheberg created the illusion that they hold three-dimensional objects.

"It really came out of me trying to figure out trompe l' oeil," he said.

One of his most striking features is "his control of the details and his attention to details," said Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Tad McKillop, who teaches sculpture and is a long-time friend of Eichenberg's.

"He's what I would call a single-brush painter," McKillop said, explaining that Eichenberg focuses on bringing out the minutest of details in his work as realistically as possible.

All the paintings on display, especially the portraits, possess a startling photo-realistic quality. Eichenberg said the secret is his use of light, after the fashion of Baroque and Renaissance paintings.

"It's all about the light, painting the light and not the object. You might say it's exaggerated or lit theatrically," he said. "I paint what I know, not what I see."

A prime example of this is his 2009 Smithsonian National Portrait competition semifinalist portrait, "Duchess of Toledo."

Using old photos of his infant daughter, Eichenberg painted a Renaissance-style side-angle portrait of a baby wearing pink kitty pajamas with a pacifier in her mouth against a backdrop of the city of Toldeo, Spain. The portrait's frame is decorated with carved pacifiers and oak leaves.
McKillop described Eichenberg's style as "classical in approach, but contemporary in theme." It's that classic approach that attracted the attention of the college's art faculty.

"The art department, through its professional connections, is always on the lookout for exemplary professional talent that reflects the classic, realist tradition upheld by the Hillsdale College Art Department," said Instructor in Art Bryan Springer, who manages the Daughtrey Gallery. Springer said Eichenberg's work meshes well with the college's art philosophy.

A large painting, titled "The Sponsorship of St. Sebastian," amply illustrates the mixing of classical and contemporary by featuring the Renaissance-style martyrdom of the saint against a backdrop of commercialism. The saint wears Dickies underwear and the background displays a large blue Motorola sign. Two of the arrows piercing the martyr bear the logos of Pepsi and Nike. Eichenberg said he wanted to explore what the Renaissance would have looked like with the American sponsorship mentality.

Eichenberg said he intends to continue similar themes, but especially portrait work.

"I'm looking for more portraits. I really want to tell a story about a person; portraits today are pretty bland," he said. "Each piece should talk a little bit about the subject."

"In the Details" will remain on display in the gallery in Sage Center for the Arts until Feb.

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