"Flurry" Print

Eric Guenette paints abstract portraits in latex, acrylic and spray paint. He also creates most of his structural and decorative framing from scratch. Some of the substrates used are cotton painter drop cloths, fiberboard, cardboard, as well as old unwanted paintings. He applies years of graphic design principles into the organic and subtly sophisticated artworks. The works feel modern and urban with dense layering and a loose juxtaposition of application techniques. He rarely paints with brushes, often using scraps of leftover framing wood or plastic scrapers created from household items like leftover butter or yogurt containers to apply the paint. The combination of sharp linear edges and random marks create a unique presentation. Much of the latex paint is mis-tinted box store house paint that has been returned to the store and resold as unwanted inventory. Eric injects a bit of fate into his works with these premixed colors. The acrylic offers a wider blending palette and spray paint provides a modern context. Growing up in a family with a malignant narcissist father, he struggled socially and as a young teen, found himself overjoyed by his discovery of art and music. He spent years drawing, designing, painting and playing the guitar. As he began to lean into his creativity, began to apprentice as a graphic designer. From there, he continued to work diligently in all aspects of his creativity. He starting painting continuously from the early 2000s on. After moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2009, he eventually joined a neighborhood studio art tour in 2015 and began to show and sell his works to the public. Over the next nine years, he sold about eighty paintings. He became immersed in studying abstraction and refining his style over the next decade. In 2024, he and his wife moved to Lagos, Portugal, where he continues to paint on the balcony of a small one bedroom apartment overlooking the ocean. The change in venue has led to several adaptations in all aspects of the creative process because of the lack of space and the access to tools for framing.