The multifaceted works of painter Gregory Euclide aren’t confined to museums and galleries. The Minnesota high school teacher and artist uses his time wisely, teaching his students while simultaneously exercising his artistic talents. During his 25-minute lunch breaks, Euclide would embark on a personal challenge requiring the skilled painter to produce impeccably detailed and wildly creative landscape paintings in sumi ink on the school’s whiteboards. What he wound up with does not disappoint!
The project called Laid Down & Wiped Away presents a series of fantastical scenes that amalgamate natural landscapes and architectural environments. While these works may not literally jump out at you like his painting installations, they metaphorically invite the viewer to jump into them and get lost in their magical beauty. It’s remarkable that Euclide was capable of producing such incredibly involved and detail-oriented pieces in the short period of time he allowed himself amidst the rest of the school day. His manipulation of the ink across the smooth surface of the board is brilliantly executed.
The real kicker about this project is that Euclide has literally wiped away each piece after completion, deeming the works “temporary paintings.” If you’re interested in seeing how quickly a work of art can disappear from the physical world, the artist has uploaded a video of his “taking away” process, which can be viewed, below. It feels wrong for something so intricate to be now be intangible. Luckily, Euclide is releasing limited edition prints of this series available for purchase through David B. Gallery.
