Erin Ehren

Lives and works in Richmond, VA

Artist statement

I am a sculptor, writer, and Hazzan with a beauty problem—or perhaps more truthfully, a God problem. In my work, beauty functions as an unwieldy tool for protection that maneuvers all involved toward isolation by way of attraction. The more skilled the wielder, the greater the distance between the wielder and the other. This is the distancing of relative beauty. By contrast, pure beauty enjoins the things of matter and spirit into union—into sensorial suspension beyond the corporeal for the Sublime. Pure beauty actualizes relation to the Numinous. And yet, what if beauty did not exist? What if beauty was discovered to be a false construct? A distraction. An imposter! A detractor of the honest sufferings and joys of embodied existence. To make a sculpture that functions more as a spell than a spectacle. A sculpture bound in complex systems of fibers, wax, and enchantment. Slow, methodical, reverential. I work at the level of surface: that veil, that membrane between knowing and unknowing. I am drawn to objects that resist comprehension, yet desire contact – objects that boundary their internal histories of meaning and use from others. Perception, belief. Doubt. Ventriloquism too; yes, ventriloquism. Take for instance that disembodied voice. Proof and product of embodied existence. It progresses as an emanation, an interception among the external. It undergoes perception and returns a changed phantom of its had-been intention. It entices, coalesces, withdraws. It desires...

Artwork

• Three Gifts, 2026. Cotton on metal, weathered broom, and two bells of a retired Torah.
• Amulet for Engagement (No. 1), 2026. Metal fragment bound by cotton, linen, polyester, and silk.
• Amulet for Engagement (No. 2), 2026. Three objects of affection—a single loose fiber found on the body of artist’s beshert, the baggie that once held a diamond now part of his wedding band, and a pink ribbon that he insisted they hold together—bound to metal by silk, wool, cotton, red cheese wax, and beeswax.
• Mirrored Fears (No. 4), 2026. Five objects of haunt—wool hand-spun by the great-grandmother of my bashert, the single longest hair from his body, two down feathers, and an eyelash—bound to paired metals in a system of cotton, silk, red cheese wax, and beeswax by hand and enchantment
• Elegy for Tanot: The Siren’s Call, 2026. Activation wherein the artist enters the museum, performs a summoning, approaches her wall-mounted poem of ten artworks, vocalizes at each artwork through the entirety of her range and resonant potential, closes the summoning, and departs. No surface—no material remains untouched by vibration. The woman is a force. Her voice, a penetrative reckoning. Homage to midrash of Rivkah Lubitch, titled Tanot, Jephthah's Daughter.
• Poem of Ten Artworks, 2026. (Right-to-left) (1) polished fragment; (2) cotton bow bound to wood by linen; (3) watercolor drawing on paper; (4) found gift bag of debris, corroded metal fragments; (5) oil on canvas; (6) torn plastics, metal shard, dried leaf; (7) two photos of a young girl in plastic frame, flowers pressed between laminate and wood; (8) polyester batting and plastic snowflake; (9) laminate flooring fragment with tape; and (10) foam and debris.
• Waṣf, 2026. (read top-to-bottom) (1) Nail extricated from neck of wooden figure, sealed in wool, cotton, silk, and beeswax (2) plastic foot found severed near lover’s home (3) tile fragment (4) gifted box in found gift bag.
• Mirrored Fears (no. 2), 2026. Paired metal fragments sealed with cottons and silk, pink paraffin wax and red cheese wax
• Two Amulets for flight (Jinan & Barcelona), 2026. Two amulets for flight, one active, one inactive. Active, metal fragment bound in gifted linen, polyester, and cotton. Inactive, a shopping bag once filled, taped, knotted, smuggled, and emptied.
• The Raven. The Dove., 2026. One sculpture placed upon another. (1) Metal bound by silk, cotton and polyester (2) Ribbon along distressed plastics and paper Homage to midrash of Tamar Biala, titled A Raven and a Dove.
• Love Luck, 2025. Iron fragment and silk flower petal - found hand-in-hand at Gethsemane Monastery - bound together by cottons and silk dyed by two tender-queer egg femmes
• Mirrored Fears (No. 1), 2025. Loose fibers, feathers, and hair found on and inside the bodies of two lovers bound to wood by cotton yarn and thread. Wax seal sealed in resin.
• Soon, 2025. Cotton on Wood
• Scrying Bench: My mother loved me like a son, 2025. Theophanic pine and steel sanded by hand to mirror finish and sealed with paste wax. No sitting.
• Lean, 2025. Male threads of a threaded rod fitted with cotton, linen, silk, wool, and polyester.
• Amulet for Arrival, 2026. Metal sealed with wool, cotton, silk, and beeswax.
• Three Charms; Four Interventions, 2026. (Charms and/or Interventions listed top-left-to-bottom-right) (1) Wooden block. Found hollows packed with lead wool. Exterior sanded, then waxed with paste wax and cosmetical foundation. (2) Finger nail and acrylic found the morning of Nov. 1st 2025. Crystalline wax. (3) Metal charm. One side polished to mirror-finish. Both sides sealed with crystalline wax. (4) Lip gloss, surface, and song.
• Unsure, 2026. One sculpture placed upon another (1) Aluminum fragment bound in cotton (2) ten loose fibers from grandpa's cashmere sweater bound to steel fragment by wool, cotton, and silk.