My goal with the Cartography paintings is to, as J.B. Harley writes, “redescribe the world,” or at least the small world of Erik Laffer. And just as there is a language of mapmaking, there is style and body of symbols is my paintings that define the landscape of each work and identify my struggle to understand self, family, home, and culture: boats, clocks, buildings, bridges, anatomy, arrows, and, among many others, lines, color, and texture.   After more than two years of experimenting with the idea of the Cartography Series, I feel like the work is finally speaking the way I want it to. Through the use of repeating symbols and texture, the paintings are becoming what I have always aimed for them to become a reflection... a style and body of symbols that represent, from my perspective, life.
Erik Laffer