Erik Schurink
Interview with Katie Bonadies, November 2026
As a designer, Schurink’s job was to lead teams towards an outcome to serve an end user. A team would discuss a concept and propose a few exhibit ideas. One exhibit Schurink and his team created was “Broken? Fix It!” evoking the throw-away nature of society. The exhibit provided kids the opportunity to fix broken objects with the challenge to design and build it in a way that the exhibit itself wouldn't break. The exhibit won a national award and traveled to museums around the country. Materiality was a big element in exhibit design. “You still need to test them with the experts–kids–and how it resonates. You often end up learning that it’s not quite right for them. Then they give you ideas and you think, ‘Ah, thank you. I just learned something from you.’” Developing exhibits for children is a powerful and humbling experience.
Schurink’s experience designing museum exhibits is a much different process from his process as an independent artist. “As an artist you start with a seed idea and explore that in dialogue with the image that emerges.” The dialogue is shaped by color, paint, brush width, and materiality, if he so chooses. He has always appreciated the poetry of materiality in exhibit design. Materiality gives access to all other disciplines: sculpture, woodwork, painting, photography, graphic design, and text. Similarly, he loves orchestrating any and all mediums towards a poetic message in his art making process. All of the media are chosen with the intention to contribute to the image or message he wants to convey. He describes the process as a back and forth, like an experiment where he looks for what happens with each step and how it informs the next decision. That’s the aspect of painting that brings Schurink joy. The things that emerge go beyond joy.
Another aspect of his painting practice that Schurink enjoys is starting with material and discovering what emerges. He has the book knowledge about paint or material, and then he gains the knowledge in his fingertips when he plays with the materials. New material is a great way for him to try out techniques. He was curious about crackle paste, which turned out to be much thicker than he had expected, “It was beautiful to discover it had dimension.” The crackle paste informed his base and decided to put it on sturdy wood panels because he didn’t want it to crackle off. His choice of wood panel led him to incorporate wood stain as well. Play is an important part of Schurink’s personal practice. He uses unexpected materials and applications, ranging from hardened primer molded by the paint tray to using bare feet and a toddler bike for application. The experiments became the base for a few of the paintings in the series he is currently working on.
"Deity and Her Story"
"Senzo Titolo (La Guardia)"
Despite the differences in process as a museum exhibit designer and an independent painter, there is crossover in his subject matter. Schurink has been working on a series of paintings depicting museum guards from snapshots he captured while visiting museums. He takes the photos as he finds the guards, before they notice he is taking their photograph. “I’m really interested in how they present themselves in the space; their posture, their attentiveness, and their disconnection, if there is any.” Schurink thinks about why they’re there when he observes the guards. Are they there because the museum wants them there, or is it for insurance purposes? And what is their role? Have they been asked to interact with visitors? At the Guggenheim a guard had a button on his vest that said ‘Talk to me about art.’ Schurink loved that–it’s a subject he still has to paint.
Shurink worked in the museum field for 35 years. Some of the museums he worked in had guards and some did not. “Museum guards are never the subject, but they’re surrounded by subject matter. The museum is a reason for people to visit, then there’s an art exhibit, and friends you want to explore it with. You never go to a museum for the guard.” The series feels meta in that he’s depicting the guards in a medium they typically protect.
He doesn’t see the connection points in the snapshots until he paints. When Schurink started a painting of a guard and a visitor, he noticed their hand position was very similar and both in service of looking. In the snapshot the visitor is biting his nails looking at a painting on the wall and the guard is looking at her phone. He titled the piece “Hands & the Act of Looking”.
"The Language of Hands"
Painting by Erik Schurink.
"Hands & the Act of Looking"
Painting by Erik Schurink.
Once the series started coming together, Schurink realized a dialogue was happening between the individual paintings as well, “As I’m painting more guards I see a larger story developing where the curator in me is having a ball.” The guard is self-referential as a museum professional, as well as a symbol of the liminal space between the multitude of people operating behind the scenes and catering to the visitor from the world outside of the museum. Guards protect the experience. “Creating a fascinating experience can take the viewer out of their daily life into a new experience that informs their daily life.”
He explains it’s like the canvas is the museum experience and the guard is in between Schurink’s interiority and the viewer, however they want to take it in. “The wonderful thing about not working towards an audience, but towards an image, is not being hung up on who sees it.” This allows him to make work that is as authentic as can be. If people relate to the work, they relate to it authentically. “That would be so wonderful if that could permeate all our lives, that we all could be as authentic as we are and can be with each other.”
As much as Schurink loves to explore poetry in visual expression, he also loves to explore artful expression in poetry. “Language is a materiality too, in and of itself and in combination with other materials.” Read his book of poetry, Beyond Words, available locally at Print: A Bookstore and online through Amazon. He also developed a banned book installation for an exhibit presented by Zero Station last spring, and an open-source manual with the invitation to anyone interested in recreating and installing it in a public space of their choice. Schurink is currently looking to share the manual with contacts at libraries and colleges.
Contact Erik Schurink at schurinkerik@gmail.com.
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