PURDY EATON
IN THE NEWS
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Purdy Eaton was born in Lafayette, Indiana. She received an M.F.A from Hunter College, City University of New York, an M.P.H. from Yale University, New Haven, and a B.S. from Indiana University, Bloomington. She lives and works in New York City.
IMAGERY AND INSPIRATION
Eat and Live. Eat and Die. is a nod to to Bruce Nauman’s One Hundred Live and Die. Eat and Live. Eat and Die; the essence of all life: plants, animals, humans, kings, queens, and cockroaches are all bound to this ethos. This, like Nauman’s other phrases, Feel and Live, Feel and Die, is simultaneously fatalistic and equalizing. The chaos of politics, climate volatility, and random violence is rightfully fear inducing and overwhelming, yet there is something hopeful and meditative about the reality you eat you live, you eat you die. There will always be a tomorrow no matter how dystopic.
Eaton also spin’s Nauman’s duality to remind us that despite the apocalyptic visions we read about daily, it is not all bad for all creatures. Fireflies, for instance, are flourishing. The Canada Goose, once on the verge of extinction, has become so common as to be a nuisance. With these color-rich and storied paintings, Eaton is asking us to realize that this is our moment to be alive, before we all die, and that the flowers are indeed quite beautiful.