Paintings
71 works
Eric Stefanski I Want to Exist For Sale
Eric Stefanski
I Want to Exist, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
20 x 16 in 50.8 x 40.6 cm
About this work
Eric Stefanski (b. 1987) is a Chicago-based painter recognized for his raw, emotionally direct works that merge abstraction, gesture, and language. Having grown up in Chicago, Stefanski’s practice reflects the city’s urban vernacular and the influence of street art, graffiti, and everyday visual culture. Over the years, he has presented solo exhibitions such as I’m a Genius, I’m a Fraud at Harper’s Gallery, where his works explored the psychological tension of creation, ego, and vulnerability. His paintings have been shown with galleries including Escat Gallery and VSOP Projects, gaining recognition among collectors for their blend of humor, self-awareness, and unfiltered emotion. At the core of Stefanski’s work is his use of text as both message and mark. His handwritten statements, sometimes scrawled or partially obscured, feel simultaneously intimate and declarative—like confessions turned outward. These phrases often carry wit, irony, and exhaustion, exposing the contradictions of the artist’s own psyche while speaking to broader human insecurities. The words, rather than sitting on top of the paint, are interwoven into the surface itself—blurred by gesture, smudged by drips, or interrupted by bold painterly strokes. The result is a tension between control and chaos, where meaning is always on the verge of unraveling. Stefanski’s work operates in a space between high and low culture, merging art-historical language with pop symbols and colloquial speech. His compositions are intentionally minimal, relying on the power of a few gestures or a single statement to convey an emotional truth. Through this stripped-down visual vocabulary, he transforms private struggle into shared experience, creating paintings that feel both diaristic and universally relatable. Balancing vulnerability with humor, Stefanski turns self-doubt and existential angst into artistic fuel. His work reads like a candid conversation—direct, raw, and deeply human. The combination of painterly immediacy and text-based wit allows his art to capture a distinctly contemporary state of being: one that is self-aware, self-deprecating, and searching for sincerity in an age of irony.
Price on Application
Edition & Provenance
- Year
- 2023
- Medium
- Acrylic on canvas
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About the Small Canvases Series
Series Performance & Market Position Eric Stefanski's paintings occupy a distinctive position within the contemporary American art market — combining the visual vocabulary of Pop Art and street culture with a formally rigorous approach to colour, composition, and text that has attracted serious collector attention. At Guy Hepner, Stefanski works have been placed with collectors drawn to accessible, wit-driven contemporary painting that rewards both immediate engagement and sustained looking.
Stefanski's paintings are priced from approximately $5,000 to $35,000 depending on scale and complexity, with commissioned works and sold-out series commanding premiums on the secondary market. His work has attracted fashion, entertainment, and finance collectors who respond to its cultural fluency and visual confidence.
Technical & Historical Context Stefanski's practice draws on advertising, commercial signage, and the aesthetics of American vernacular culture, recontextualising familiar visual language within the formal conventions of fine art painting. His works typically combine text — often humorous, ironic, or affirmatory statements — with bold graphic compositions executed in acrylic on canvas or panel.
His engagement with popular culture is knowing rather than merely appropriative: Stefanski filters consumer imagery through an art-historical awareness that connects his practice to Pop Art predecessors while maintaining a distinctly contemporary voice.
Individual Works & Collector Preferences Stefanski's text-based works generate the strongest collector response, particularly those that strike a balance between wit and formal precision. Works from early sold-out series have demonstrated meaningful secondary market appreciation, reflecting both collector attachment and constrained supply.
Large-scale paintings work particularly effectively in the residential and commercial contexts where Stefanski's collector base predominantly operates.
Authentication & Condition Considerations Stefanski's works are authenticated through his studio. The acrylic medium is stable and relatively robust; works stored and displayed appropriately require minimal conservation attention.
Investment Analysis & 2026 Acquisition Strategy Stefanski's consistent output and expanding collector base position his paintings as strong acquisitions at their current price points. His primary market remains accessible, creating genuine upside opportunity for early collectors as his institutional profile continues to develop.
Contact Guy Hepner at 177 10th Avenue, New York to discuss Eric Stefanski painting availability and placement.
About Eric Stefanski
Eric Stefanski is a Chicago based artist known for large scale abstract paintings that incorporate bold, handwritten text. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and earned his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2015.
Stefanski's work merges expressive mark making with direct, often humorous or self-deprecating phrases, using language as a way into larger themes around vulnerability, failure, and the pressures of maintaining a creative practice. His large-scale canvases favor vibrant color and bold lettering, with text functioning less as slogan and more as fragments of internal dialogue, blending humor with genuine emotional weight. Through this approach, Stefanski examines what it means to sustain a life as a working artist, treating uncertainty and contradiction as part of the process rather than something to resolve.
His work has been shown extensively in Chicago and Boston, along with solo exhibitions in cities including Tokyo and Madrid, and has continued to expand into galleries and institutions internationally.
He continues to live and work in Chicago.
Guy Hepner works with collectors seeking Eric Stefanski's bold, text-driven abstract paintings. Contact us to discuss available inventory or to inquire about upcoming releases.