MANCHESTER, NH.- Opening June 2, visitors to the Currier Museum of Art will have the rare opportunity to see an artist who has developed a fresh visual vocabulary all his own, as Eric Aho responds to the world around him and re-interprets the artistic traditions of landscape subjects and abstract painting.

The Currier Museum of Art is the first American museum to present a survey exhibition of Eric Aho’s work. Transcending Nature features paintings by the Vermont-based artist (born 1966), whose earlier works on view include dramatic, plein air paintings of landscapes influenced by such artists as Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, John Constable and Frederic Church.

Aho’s most recent paintings are abstract monumental compositions – some as large as eight feet by nine feet. His abstract paintings capture the lived, remembered and imagined experience of being outdoors. Through the unexpected use of color, vigorous paint handling and surprising compositions, Aho’s paintings make palpable the immediacy of nature and the intangibles of light and movement.

Both the Currier Museum and its associated Art Center are involved in presenting Transcending Nature. Andrew Spahr, the museum’s director of collections and exhibitions, and Bruce McColl, painter and director of the Currier Art Center are co-curating the show.

“In his most recent work, Eric brings two painting cultures together – one rooted in the depictive landscape, and the other in the abstract,” said Bruce McColl, adding, “He subverts old traditions and uses a more painterly, expressive approach.”

Born in Melrose, MA, Aho grew up in Hudson, NH. After studying at the Central School of Art and Design in London, Aho received his BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art. He has also studied at the Institute of Art and Design in Lahti, Finland, with support from a Fulbright Fellowship and a grant from the American Scandinavian Foundation. Aho’s paintings have been shown internationally in Ireland, South Africa, Cuba, Japan, Norway and Finland. Aho exhibits regularly in New York City where he is represented by DC Moore Gallery. His work is in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Springfield Art Museum, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.