English: The exhibition "Eric Aho: Ice Cuts" was on view at the Hood Museum of Art January 9 through March 13, 2016.

Vermont-based artist Eric Aho’s series of Ice Cuts paintings is inspired by the hole cut in the ice in front of a Finnish sauna, an aspect of Finnish culture that Aho’s family has maintained to this day. Intended for an icy immersion following the heat of the sauna, the avanto, as it is called in Finnish, underscores and personalizes the inherent contrasts in nature. Aho began the Ice Cuts series nine years ago, making one painting a year of the dark void produced by the act of sawing into the thick ice. This exhibition is the first to concentrate on the Ice Cuts paintings he has created to date. The central abstract form in these compositions provides the structure for experimentation with paint texture, surface, and subtly nuanced color, lending these frozen scenes both an austere beauty and a particular vibrancy. This exhibition brings together the major paintings in the series to date and smaller, related works on paper to offer unique insight into the artistic process.

This exhibition was organized by the Hood Museum of Art and generously supported by the Philip Fowler 1927 Memorial Fund and the Ray Winfield Smith 1918 Memorial Fund.

Curated by Katherine W. Hart, Senior Curator of Collections and Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Curator of Academic Programming / Eric Aho