Beautiful and Terrible

Eriq Henry Madsen (1971-2023)

 

8/27/2021: Mark introduces me to Eriq
at Sra'Art gallery. 

The first time I met Eriq was on August 27, 2021. I had arrived in Cambodia fifteen days earlier and it was my second day out of my mandatory international arrival quarantine period. Completely overwhelmed by Phnom Penh, I jumped on the opportunity when my friend Mark - who I'd met a couple years earlier during my assignment in Bamako, Mali, and who had met me as I stepped out of quarantine in my new home city - invited me to an art gallery happy hour. After a brief but exciting ride on Mark's motorbike, we stepped into Sra'Art gallery. A small crowd of obvious expatriates milled about, holding coffee mugs and alternately murmuring to each other and gazing at the artwork on the walls. It all felt vaguely dangerous and risqué, and not just because of the artsy people cleverly clinging together in small cliques, French accents real and fake floating through the air: after all, there was still a loose lockdown in place, and a ban on alcohol. 

Mark introduced me to one of the artists showing his work: Eriq Henry Madsen. I vaguely recall chatting with him and noticing his eccentricity, his force of character, and his downright exuberant friendliness. His confidence and direct, connecting engagement made me feel both seen and slightly intimidated by his purely artistic mind. 

The next time I saw Eriq was March 26, 2022. The community liaison office at the Embassy had arranged a sip'n'paint activity and I'd signed up. The instructor: Eriq. As I sipped my wine and stared at a blank canvas, completely at a loss, Eriq gave a brief talk on emotions and art and experiencing creativity rather than having a goal or final product in mind. As everyone around me started dipping and dabbing, chatting merrily and - to my mind - instantly creating art, that field of white just glared back at me, daring me to try something. I recall Eriq coming to talk to me, forbidding me to repeat my oft-used excuse of having lost out on the artistic gene lottery because my older brother had hogged it all. He encouraged me to have fun, and just put my brush into a color and put something on the canvas. Enjoy the experience, he reassured me. Don't try to make something great. Just be myself and put my emotion into color. The result has hung on my office wall ever since, a reminder that playfulness and color need not have a structure or a reason, that merely existing is enough. Every now and then I turn the canvas and enjoy a new perspective. Is it art? Debatable. Did I have fun? Oh, yes. 

On November 11, 2022, I was sitting at Enso Café, enjoying brunch and reading my book at one of the outdoor tables. All of the sudden, someone was talking to me: it was Eriq. We pinpointed how we knew each other - both of us Mark's friend, me as the sip 'n paint attendee, him as the expat artist - and had a brief catch up chat. We got on the topic of art classes and Eriq mentioned that he was working on starting a community of people doing art: explicitly not artists, but people interested in building community and doing or learning art. In what felt to me a step in a new and slightly alarming direction, I gave him my number and asked him to let me know when he got things started. He promised he would

Art is for everyone.

Two weeks later, Eriq added me to a group chat, and the week after that was my first art class with Eriq. I spent many Saturday afternoons after that, painting with Eriq and a handful of other students - sometimes more, often fewer. Most were quite talented and a few were, like me, just dipping my toe into the artistic landscape. Eriq was a kind and patient teacher: when I couldn't decide what to do, he gave me an easy exercise with some basic concepts to hold in my mind, and that was the beginning of an 8-session piece for me, my first piece of intentionally made art. Eriq always had a project ready to introduce new and interesting concepts, but was never tied to his plans. At the beginning of every class, he reminded us that the goal was to have fun, get to know each other, put paint on the canvas. We were welcome to jump on his train of thought, or do our own thing. 

Eriq was funny, friendly, snarky, brilliant, and terribly in the moment and frank. Over the course of several classes he shared that he was HIV positive, gay, a recovering addict, estranged from family. In late December, he texted me an invite to check out a rock climbing gym with him and another art student, a teenage girl. Off we went, enjoying the silliness of getting barely ten feet off the ground and plopping onto the mats, then wandering down the street to get ice cream. That's when I learned Eriq was a father, and a grandfather. He'd adopted and spoke so engagingly about his son and his experience as a dad, how he loved being surrounded by youthful energy and creativity and emotion. 

The following weekend I invited Eriq to try archery at The Playroom, which also had axe throwing and board games. He agreed immediately and we spent a great afternoon together shooting arrows, gabbing over lime sodas, and shouting Austin Powers quotes at each other ("yeah baby, work it, let me see the tiger, yeaaaaah baby!") while snapping pictures with our phones. Eriq brought out the silly and fun, adding in snide commentary on what he saw around him and never failing to buoy me up, whether I was up or down or just in the moment. 

Eriq invited me to art openings, encouraging me to come for just a few minutes. Sometimes we'd stay longer and other times Eriq would sigh impatiently, look me directly in the eye, and say, "I'm bored - let's get out of here." Then we'd walk along the bustling, dirty, motorcycles-whizzing-by streets of Phnom Penh, commenting on what we saw and thought and felt, and go our separate ways for the evening. 

Bullseye!

He checked in on my a lot, and almost never accepted the same from me. He was complimentary towards me, at times gently nudging me to be less critical of myself and at times less gently telling me how to tell the world to go screw itself. "Nobody's got time for that nonsense," I remember him saying often, about negativity or gossip or judgmental people. 

Eriq and I had dinner on my apartment building's rooftop on several occasions, one or the other of us yammering on about whatever was on our minds. I enjoyed listening to him imagine and plan and wonder. He always ordered the same thing from Enso's: the salmon dinner, croissant and nutella bread pudding, and lime soda. 

In February, a former foreign service friend of mine came to visit for the weekend. We went to an art show with some of Eriq's work on display, an apartment-turned-studio that was hot and stuffy, but full of vibrant artsy types. We stayed less than thirty minutes, but between that and a trip to Eriq's studio, my friend got a sense of Eriq and commented on the evident friendship he saw between us.

In April 2023, Eriq wasn't feeling well. He canceled a class and turned down my offer to bring him food or conversation, saying he just needed to rest. A few days later, a colleague at the Embassy gave me the news that Eriq had passed away. I was in denial, then overcome by guilt, and finally, just terribly, achingly sad. A pre-planned trip took me back to the U.S. for a month, where I alternated remembering him fondly and remembering him sadly. 

Eriq was a shining light that I was truly lucky to have glimpsed. 

Oh, Eriq. I miss you, my friend. 

Living, Breathing Art

Eriq started this piece for a 
commission, but was never
paid for it. 

The piece took shape and it
really bothered me somehow.

Finished, it appealed to me.
Title: In the pursuit of greatness
Goodness lights the way.




My Teacher, My Friend