Working with classical themes, she explores their contemporary relevance. At the same time, she carries forward the legacy of abstract painting by fusing painterly elements into rhizomes and testing the expressive qualities of pure color and sweeping gesture. As a consistent research she explores how recognizable a motif must be in order for specific references in content to emerge and for a narrative to form. Through her ongoing investigation of these questions she produces gorgeous canvases, which are as much painterly events as dense narratives, for they are usually based on compacted allegorical compositions that Erb reinterprets before the backdrop of the challenges facing today’s society.