Guy Hepner Gallery

Eric Stefanski Look Me In The Eyes For Sale

Eric Stefanski
Eric Stefanski - Look Me In The Eyes, 2025, Oil on canvas

Look Me In The Eyes, 2025

Oil on canvas

16 x 20 in 40.6 x 50.8 cm

About this work

Eric Stefanski's *Look Me In The Eyes* presents the titular phrase rendered in the artist's distinctive hand, the words emerging from a ground that vibrates between presence and absence. The letters carry the weight of a demand—intimate, confrontational, vulnerable all at once. Executed in oil on canvas, the work demonstrates Stefanski's continued investigation into language as both image and emotional artifact, each brushstroke holding the residue of the sentiment it spells out. The composition places the viewer in the position of the addressed, unable to escape the directness of the plea or command. There is no figure, no literal gaze to meet, yet the painting generates the sensation of being seen, of being asked to truly witness. The scale—sixteen by twenty inches—keeps the encounter personal, domestic even, as though these words might appear on a wall where real conversations happen and fail to happen. Stefanski has built his practice around this tension: words stripped from their original contexts become universal while remaining deeply specific. His text-based paintings function as emotional compression, distilling entire relationships, arguments, or moments of recognition into typographic form. *Look Me In The Eyes* continues this investigation, transforming a phrase we have all spoken or heard into something we must now confront visually, repeatedly, without the relief of looking away. The work exemplifies why Stefanski's paintings resonate so immediately—they speak before we fully register them as art. For inquiries regarding acquisition of *Look Me In The Eyes*, please contact Guy Hepner gallery in New York.

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Edition & Provenance

Year
2025
Medium
Oil on canvas
Look Me In The Eyes

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.

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