Eric Aho
Eric Aho (American, born 1966), Whistle, 2012, oil on linen, 30 x 30 in. Schwartz Art Collection, Harvard Business School, 2014.2.
Known for his gestural abstractions that evoke natural forms, Eric Aho works from his impressions of the landscape. Born in Melrose, MA, and raised in New Hampshire, Aho received a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. In 1989, he participated in the first exchange of scholars in over thirty years between the US and Cuba. He completed his graduate work at the Lahti Art Institute in Finland supported by a Fulbright Fellowship in 1991–92 and an American-Scandinavian Foundation grant in 1993. Eric Aho was elected to the National Academy in 2009, and currently lives and works in Vermont. He describes this painting: “Whistle represents an experience in the winter woods that engages all the senses. As such, this painting is as much about what is heard as it is about what is seen. The fleeting, momentary view depicted is the visual equivalent of a whistling sound: of one’s voice or the wind hanging in the air."