Kunsthalle Galapagos announces How to Bury Your Own Dead Body, a solo exhibition by Artist in Residence Erik Hougen. The show presents a body of new large-scale watercolors, all created while Hougen was in residency at the Kunsthalle. Starting with found video stills and photographs from his daily life, Hougen employs a printmaking inspired CMYK separation technique to build his paintings. The works reveal a dark world of fog and disjointed narratives of uncertainty, absence and solitude. In conjunction with the show, Kunsthalle Galapagos will co-publish a catalogue with New York City based printshop Marginal Editions.

The Kunsthalle Galapagos Artist in Residency program was inaugurated in Fall 2011 as a way to champion a local and emerging artist and ensure that the artist voice is present in the Kunsthalle. Hougen was chosen based on an artistic practice that reflects the Kunsthalle’s mission of pushing boundaries and challenge ourselves. During his residency, Hougen has been closely involved in curating and developing exhibitions and running the space, all while producing a body of work to culminate in a solo show.

Erik Hougen received his MFA in 2008 from Pratt Institute. In 2011, he was a resident in the Artist in the Marketplace program at the Bronx Museum, and a SIP Fellow at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, New York City. Recently, he has been in shows at the Bronx Museum and the International Print Center New York and has upcoming shows at the Blackburn 20|20 Gallery at the Elizabeth Foundation, and the Printmaking Center of New Jersey. His work will travel to Washington D.C. as a semifinalist for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013 at the National Portrait Gallery.