Finding: Source Material in the Archives of American Art

Don Eddy

Don Eddy once described himself as “an obsessive-compulsive precisionist.” The execution of his hyperrealistic paintings requires tremendous discipline and scrupulous attention to detail. His process begins with several photographs, each portraying the same arrangement of objects from slightly different angles. Eddy combines elements from these sources to bring sharp focus to every object, every glimmer of light, and every reflective surface. He also contrives new color palettes, ignoring the original color of an object or even its representation in the photograph. In an interview, the artist explained that the final paintings “force the viewer to see the act of translation from the object to the photo to the painting.”