| Eric Daigh | |
| Birth Date: | 11 April 1977 |
| Birth Place: | Savannah, Georgia, U.S. |
| Known For: | Modern art, Installation art, New media art, Conceptual art |
| Training: | University of Montana |
| Movement: | Modernism |
| Awards: | ArtPrize |
Eric Daigh is an American artist based in Traverse City, Michigan. He gained acclaim in 2009 when he won third place [1] for his pushpin portraits in the Inaugural ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His artwork displays a strong sense of play and uses a variety of unorthodox and unconventional everyday life materials including pushpins and Post-It notes.[2]
Eric Daigh’s artwork combines creativity along with hours of diligent application. As a process artist, his work starts with taking a series of photographs of his subject. After carefully analyzing the photos, he uses a computer and specialized software to break an image down to a very low resolution and forces the computer to make the image out of only five colors (red, blue, yellow, black and white).[3] He then uses a grid map to show where to stick the pins row by row. At first glance, Daigh’s artwork appears to be a low-resolution portrait, but upon closer inspection, onlookers can see each piece is made up of thousands of colored pins. Many of his art pieces use over 11,000 pushpins to complete a three-foot by four-foot piece and as many as 25,000 pushpins for a four-foot by six-foot piece.[4] In Summer 2010, Daigh surpassed his own world record by creating a commissioned pushpin piece for automaker Acura, which used 109,687 pushpins.[5]
Eric Daigh was born in Orange, California and is a graduate of the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana. He is known for his large-scale creative use of pushpins in portraits and multimedia artwork. His artwork combines the use of photography, graphic design and imagination to create a photographic mosaic art piece. His inspiration comes from artist Chuck Close, an American painter and photographer known for his photorealistic massive-scale portraits. Portrait photographer Martin Schoeller also inspired Daigh.[6]