California Girls: Eric Sherarts and David Bauman at Interact Gallery
Author: Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts
Published: 2023/06/28 - Updated: 2025/12/21
Publication Type: Event
Category Topic: Art - Artists - Related Publications
Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main - Insights, Updates
Synopsis: This exhibition documents the artistic partnership between Eric Sherarts and David Bauman, two artists with Down syndrome whose decades-long friendship began in early childhood. Their work - consisting of drawings, paintings, embroideries, and mosaics - reveals a deep engagement with landscape and the natural world, with Bauman's intricate memory-based drawings of Hawaiian volcanoes and Sherarts' recent embroidered flowers and animals creating a visual dialogue across their practice. The exhibition is meaningful for those interested in understanding how artists with intellectual disabilities create work of considerable technical skill and emotional depth, and it offers viewers access to the ways art can function as a vehicle for documenting personal connection and longing - Disabled World (DW).
Introduction
Interact Center for Visual & Performing Arts is pleased to present California Girls, an exhibition by Eric Sherarts and David Bauman at Interact Gallery. Titled by Sherarts after Bauman's favorite song, California Girls brings together the work of two artists whose friendship began in early childhood and spanned decades.
Main Content
Featuring drawings, paintings, embroideries, archival prints, and mosaics by Sherarts and Bauman, the exhibition explores their mutual love of the natural world - presented within the context of their profound friendship and the longing that has, at times, informed each artist's work.
Can a drawing transport us to the places or people we wish to revisit?
Enthralled by Hawaii after a family trip in 2005, David Bauman (1969-2019) made the islands and their primordial landscapes the focus of his work, drawing intricately patterned volcanoes, craters, and clouds from memory. In his drawings, he sought to manifest the places he longed for, encapsulating the essence of what moved him - the colors, the vibrations, the dynamism of the landscape and its wild inhabitants. In 2014, he returned to Hawaii with his sister, where he lived for the rest of his life.
Eric Sherarts (b. 1969) is deeply interested in shape, color, and texture. In his 26-year career at Interact and lifelong artistic practice, Sherarts has often made the natural world the focus of his work. Leading up to the exhibition, he created new pieces in response to Bauman's archive. In a series of recent embroideries on felt, Sherarts tenderly outlines flower petals with thread, embellishing them with vivid, loosely painted fields of color. Another piece, an ink drawing of a leaping leopard, echoes the work of Bauman, who devoted years to drawing big cats.
Sherarts and Bauman were inseparable from a young age. They met at six months through the University of Minnesota's comprehensive Edge program, which was developed to enhance education for children with Down syndrome. Over the years, they continued their friendship, sharing a sublime sense of humor and a love for professional wrestling, Nintendo, and pizza. At Interact they practiced side by side, each pursuing their own interests, often finding their way to parallel themes. Among other things, California Girls reflects the dedication each artist brought to his subjects. When asked what the process of putting the show together was like, Sherarts says, "Happy. I made that for David."
The opening reception, which is free and open to the public, falls between the artists' July birthdays. It will include food and beverages selected by Sherarts based on meals they used to share: pizza, Pepsi, and beer. There will also be a WWE-themed birthday cake.
California Girls
July 10 - August 10, 2023.
Opening Reception
Saturday, July 15, 4 - 6 p.m. | Free and open to the public
Remarks at 4:30 p.m.
Interact Gallery*
755 Prior Avenue North, Suite #002D | St. Paul, MN 55104
(651) 756-1246
* Not to be confused with Interact Center.
COVID Precautions
At this time, masks are optional at Interact Gallery.
About Interact Center for Visual & Performing Arts
Interact is a progressive visual arts studio and theater company whose work challenges perceptions of disability. Since 1996, Interact has worked to advance the recognition of over 120 professional working artists, uniting disparate artistic identities, abilities, and backgrounds in the spirit of radical inclusion.
Accessibility
Interact strives to make its programs a welcoming and accessible experience for all. If there is something that we can do to make it easier to experience an exhibition, please contact us at gallery@interactcenter.com we welcome all suggestions and requests.
Insights, Analysis, and Developments
Editorial Note: What emerges from this exhibition is a straightforward truth: the friendship between Sherarts and Bauman demonstrates that the quality of an artistic career, and of a life, has nothing to do with the absence of disability and everything to do with sustained commitment, genuine relationships, and the freedom to pursue what matters. Their work was made possible not by inspiration or sentiment, but by decades of institutional and personal support - the Edge program, Interact Center, and each other - which allowed both artists the space to develop their vision. For anyone navigating discussions about accessibility in the arts, about what disability representation should look like, or about the actual participation of disabled artists in cultural institutions, this exhibition serves as a concrete example of what serious inclusion looks like in practice - Disabled World (DW).Attribution/Source(s): This quality-reviewed publication was selected for publishing by the editors of Disabled World (DW) due to its relevance to the disability community. Originally authored by Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts and published on 2023/06/28, this content may have been edited for style, clarity, or brevity.