Ericka Wolf is an American painter working in oils, wax, and resin. She studied oil and encaustic painting at the Gage Academy of Art and is continuing her studies at the New York Academy of Art and the Grand Central Atelier. She has participated in group and solo shows in the Northwest, and her work is held in private and public collections in the United States, Europe, and Australia. Her paintings have been featured on the covers of magazines and in the poet Andrew Gottlieb’s chapbook, “Flow Variations.” She was born in Seattle, where she currently lives with her husband and son. Inspired by color field painters like Jules Olitski, Mark Rothko, and Helen Frankenthaler, as well as photographers Eric Cahan, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Debra Bloomfield, she captures expressions that are transient and intentionally uncomplicated. Her art is something reductive yet reflective, using color as luminous expression rather than mere illustration. Ericka invites the viewer to enter the painting, slow down, unclench, and access the soft, blurry consciousness of waking up. She encourages viewers to sink into the luminous light of the horizon before the sun sets, when the mind is quiet and open to what surfaces from the stillness. She believes that the sky serves as the perfect metaphor for life’s expansiveness—whether open and light or dark and ominous. Ultimately, it is beautiful in its vibrancy, duality, and impermanence. As Pema Chödrön wrote, “You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather.”