Eric Thaller’s path into the art world is far from conventional.
Over the last 30 years, Thaller worked on Wall Street before following his entrepreneurial spirits to Silicon Valley where he helped build two technology companies. It was during a self-imposed break from work in 2012 when his long-standing passion for art became a practice of making art. From that point forward, Thaller has produced a broad portfolio of work and demonstrated a clear intention to create more than simple visual encounters.
Thaller doesn’t want you to just see his work. He wants you to discover it. In a world where information emerges quickly and disappears just as fast -- Twitter posts, Instagram reels, ephemeral news cycles - Thaller wants to pull us back the other way
and have us absorb more than a fleeting image or a brief headline. His method is to combine mediums, subjects and themes in unexpected ways. He often makes us question exactly what we are looking at and asks us to consider provocative topics in his layered compositions that beg us to spend more than just a few seconds digesting.
Thaller routinely uses visual ploys by radically altering scale to draw viewers in, only to have them realize that what they are looking at may not be what they initially thought. A larger-than-life image of Salvador Dali is actually composed of Legos. An oversized pharmaceutical label is actually a parody but contains real gel capsules inside the frame. A colorful portrait of Audrey Hepburn is composed of small circles of ink parsed on two different layers, revealing a hidden message. Much of the work is meant to hang on the wall but these unconventional elements make it feel three-dimensional. And it’s not uncommon for him to incorporate the framing in the work itself.
Thaller’s subjects are undeniably familiar and sometimes easily identifiable by name. But they are only the trigger for the underlying themes. His work, often with a fresh satirical bent and a touch of levity, comments on the undeniability of human imperfection and its impact on our behaviors and social interactions. He tackles everything from American gun culture, celebrity and fame, wealth and status, relationship dynamics and the impact of social media. Sometimes these messages are easily understood from the textual components of the work. Other times the messages are hidden, require a change in light or must be viewed from a specific angle.
Ultimately it is the fusion of these critical elements – unorthodox compositions, dramatic scaling and thought-provoking underlying themes - that surprise the viewer and deliver a multidimensional experience.
In the last few years, you may have seen his work at Art Miami, Context Art Miami, Scope Miami, Hampton’s Fine Art Fair, Art Market Hamptons, Art Market San Francisco, the Los Angeles Art Show, the Affordable Art Fair New York and the Seattle Art Fair among others.
Thaller studied studio art at the University of California, San Diego while earning a BA in Economics, Magna Cum Laude. He also earned an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and completed The General Course at the London School of Economics.
He currently resides in the city where he was born, Los Angeles.