Eric Bourdon

Eric Bourdon is a self-taught French painter and sketch artist based in Lille, France. His work begins with a simple impulse: drawing without knowing exactly where the line will lead.

Working through improvisation, Bourdon transforms spontaneous lines, curves and colourful marks into unexpected characters, creatures and imaginary worlds. What may begin as a doodle gradually becomes a painting through a process of discovery, in which chance and accident play an essential role. Rather than starting with a predetermined image, he allows forms to emerge from the drawing itself.

This playful approach is at the heart of his practice. Bourdon is interested in the creative potential of uncertainty and in the moment when an apparently random line suddenly suggests a face, a body, a story or an emotion.

His original paintings, primarily created with acrylic paint on canvas and other supports, combine drawing and painting in a distinctive, spontaneous language that moves between abstraction and figuration.

Eric Bourdon has exhibited his work in France and internationally, including exhibitions in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, the United States and China. His paintings are held in private collections in France and abroad.

For B...

Eric Bourdon’s path to painting did not begin in an art school. In fact, the decision to become a painter appeared remarkably early: at the age of five, he had already chosen painting as what he wanted to do. That childhood impulse never completely disappeared. Years later, after studying science and earning a degree in philosophy, it returned with greater force and eventually became a central part of his life.

He is a completely self-taught painter. Without formal training in the techniques, conventions or traditions of painting, Bourdon developed his own approach through experimentation, curiosity and the freedom to discover things for himself. Rather than following an established method, he learned by observing, trying, failing, starting again and seeing where each new idea could lead.

This autodidactic approach is not simply a circumstance of his biography; it is an essential part of his artistic practice. He remains deliberately curious about what he does not know, what he has never tried and what he has never painted before. Instead of repeating a formula that has already been mastered, each new painting becomes an opportunity to experiment and to encounter something unexpected.

His studies in science and philosophy contin...

2026
40th Summer of Arts, Salle de la Corderie, Étaples sur Mer
Exposition of the Fine Arts, Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Arras
38th APAPCO Artistic Salon, Palais des Congrès, Le Touquet-Paris-Plage
Personal Exhibition, Les Orchidées Nursing Home, Roubaix-Barbieux

2025
Solidarit' Art, Exhibition & Auction for Biodiversity by HUMY, Paris 11e, France
39th Summer of Arts, Étaples sur mer, France
37th APAPCO Artistic Salon, Palais des Congrès, Le Touquet, France
Exhibition of the Circle of Paris Artists, Floral Park of Paris Vincennes, France
Art Capital, Society of French Artists, Grand Palais, Champs-Élysées, Paris, France

2024
109th edition of the Salon of the French School, Versailles, France
32nd Regional Art Exhibition, Artistic Group of the Calaisis, Calais, France
38th Summer of Arts, Étaples sur mer, France
Exhibition of the Fine Arts, Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Arras, France

2023
Summer Contemporaries, Exhibition & Auction, Millon Riviera, Nice, France
37th Summer of Arts, Étaples sur mer, France - Grand Jury Prize
Art is Everywhere, 7th edition, EDHEC Business School, Lille, France

2022
Eric Bourdon's solo show, Accidents of the imagination, Étaples sur mer
36th Summer ...