
Paintings
75 works

Bring Me Flowers, 2026
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 in ; 40.6 x 50.8 cm
Eric Stefanski's "Bring Me Flowers" presents the titular phrase rendered in the artist's characteristic hand-painted text, the words emerging from a ground that holds the weight of both request and longing. The letters carry an uneven intimacy, their forms suggesting something handwritten rather than typeset, as though pulled from a note left on a kitchen counter or whispered into the silence of an empty room. Stefanski's palette here works in service of emotional temperature—the text neither shouts nor disappears but holds steady at the register of quiet need, that particular vulnerability of asking for tenderness directly. Within Stefanski's ongoing practice of treating language as both image and artifact, "Bring Me Flowers" operates at the intersection of the declarative and the plaintive. The phrase itself toggles between command and plea, between the romantic gesture we perform and the genuine desire beneath it. Flowers as symbol carry their own freight: apology, courtship, grief, celebration, the marking of occasions when words alone feel insufficient. By rendering this request in paint, Stefanski fixes what is usually fleeting—the spoken wish, the typed message, the thought held back—into something permanent and contemplatable. The work's modest scale at 16 x 20 inches creates an encounter suited to close looking, drawing the viewer into a private exchange rather than a public declaration. This intimacy is central to Stefanski's project: language stripped of context yet heavy with the residue of every context in which such words have been spoken. For acquisition inquiries regarding "Bring Me Flowers," please contact Guy Hepner gallery in New York.


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.