
Paintings
75 works

Do Whatever You Want, 2025
Oil on canvas
60 x 48 in ; 152.4 x 121.9 cm
Eric Stefanski's "Do Whatever You Want" presents the titular phrase in his characteristic hand-rendered lettering, the words occupying the canvas with quiet authority. The oil paint application carries visible texture, each letter formed with deliberate imperfection that suggests human utterance rather than mechanical reproduction. The composition allows the statement to breathe within the generous 60 x 48 inch format, giving weight to words that might otherwise dissolve into the noise of daily permission and dismissal. The phrase itself operates in productive ambiguity. It could read as liberating—an invitation toward radical freedom—or as the exhausted surrender of someone withdrawing from negotiation entirely. Stefanski mines this tension without resolving it, allowing viewers to locate themselves within the emotional spectrum the words traverse. There is something both tender and devastating in the statement, the way it might be whispered in love or spat in frustration. Within Stefanski's broader practice, language functions as emotional residue, the textual traces left behind after feeling has moved through. His paintings capture phrases at the moment they calcify into memory, becoming objects we can examine from a distance we never had in their original speaking. The work continues his exploration of how written words carry somatic weight, how typography becomes a vessel for vulnerability. "Do Whatever You Want" exemplifies the artist's ability to transform simple declarative sentences into sites of sustained contemplation, where meaning multiplies rather than settles. For acquisition inquiries regarding this work, 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.