Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Hanson.
Eric, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I’ve been dabbling in art my whole life, but never felt confident enough to be the type who paints a picture and displays it for sale. I’ve been in the Graphic Design field off and on for 20 years and I’ve painted over 40 murals, but all of that was work for hire and none of it was really what I wanted to do.
In fact, I didn’t know what I wanted to paint. I was too inhibited and lacked the confidence to put my mind onto canvas. I reasoned that whatever I decided to paint would be judged as either “too weird” by one audience or “too bland” by another audience, and I really didn’t want to subject myself to any negative criticism.
Then in 2009, I was going through a divorce. During that time, I realized that it was the perfect opportunity to reboot my life and change the things I didn’t like about myself. With that in mind, I noticed that when my two-year-old daughter would come over, she would draw all the time, without any inhibition. She produced a lot of work and was extremely satisfied with all of it. After a while I began asking myself, “Why am I not doing that?”
So, I decided that one of my reboot items was to become a “real artist”. I don’t really believe in any objective definition of the term “real artist”, but what I meant is that I would paint what I wanted to, and then hang it up for people to buy. There were two problems: I didn’t know what I wanted to paint, and I didn’t know where to hang my paintings where people would buy them. But that didn’t matter at the time; all that mattered was that I decided what I wanted to do.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I mainly do two types of painting which bear no resemblance to each other: My “Splatter Paintings” and my “Landmark Paintings”
My Splatter Paintings originated after the divorce was final and I realized that I needed to start pursuing my goals. While brainstorming in the shower, I flicked water onto the door, which made a random splat. In my laziness, I thought to myself, “I wish I could just flick paint and have it been something.”
After a few months of dwelling on it, I decided to do a proof of concept painting. While there are some trade secrets involved, the basic idea is that I dip my fingers in paint and flick it — no brushstrokes or pencil lines — and the end result is a portrait. My first attempt at this technique was a painting of my daughter. I thought it looked okay, so I posted it to Facebook. Within a day I had three commissioned sales.
My Landmark Paintings came about when I’d ride my bike with a backpack full of supplies to Klyde Warren Park in Downtown Dallas and paint the surrounding buildings. I was just doing them for myself with no intent to sell them. But I’d post them to Facebook and sometimes people would ask to buy them. I eventually designed a stronger style and began painting landmarks more frequently. After a lot of legwork, I managed to find several places that would let me show my work.
These Landmark Paintings are much more traditional than my Splatter Paintings — for starters, I use brushes. But like my Splatter Paintings, I put a lot of effort into maintaining a recognizable style. I employ a color palette which was chosen almost by accident and which is definitely not ideal for my subject matter. But I made up my mind to make it work and, as a result, my pieces all have a bit of a family resemblance which ties them all together.
How do you think about success, as an artist, and what do quality do you feel is most helpful?
I see success simply as deciding what it is I want to do, then achieving it.
For my own purposes, the characteristic I pursue the most in my art is Consistency: I want my work to be instantly recognized as “an Eric Hanson painting”. This becomes increasingly difficult as I seek to improve my work, so I put a lot of thought and planning into that aspect. Changes need to be made in order to evolve and I am forced to decide which stylistic elements are maintained and which are abandoned. When I get the reactions, “Your newer paintings look better”, AND “you have such a recognizable style”, then I consider my efforts to be successful. Incidentally, this is why I never feature my Landmark Paintings in the same venue as my Splatter Paintings: It dilutes the overall identity of my work.
In regards to being a professional artist (as opposed to a hobbyist), the second most important characteristic for me is Exposure. If I were to do the best paintings the world has ever seen, but refused to allow the world to ever see them, then I would never be successful as a professional artist. For that reason, I try to always have my artwork within easy view of my audience.
One final item that I see is essential: Learn to accept compliments. It used to be very easy for me to dismiss compliments as insincere…or perhaps that the speaker wasn’t educated enough to know good art from bad. As a result, I severely underestimated my ability to produce art, which naturally resulted in stifled growth. It’s often easy to accept negativity as “real” and positivity as “fake”, which I now see is logically inconsistent. My decision to accept every compliment as though it was sincere and valid has done wonders for my productivity and subsequent success.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I have a website, a Facebook page, and an Instagram page — each with the same name:
• www.EricHansonArtwork.com
• www.facebook.com/EricHansonArtwork
• www.instagram.com/EricHansonArtwork
There are also several businesses who periodically display my artwork:
• Flying Horse Cafe at the Magnolia Hotel in Downtown Dallas
• Pottery Barn on Knox Street in Dallas
• West Elm at Mockingbird Station in Dallas
• West Elm at Legacy West in Plano
• West Elm on W. 7th in Fort Worth
• Pottery Barn in University Park Village in Fort Worth
• Deep Ellum Art Company on Commerce Street in Deep Ellum, Dallas
• Dallas Omni Hotel in Downtown Dallas
My merchandise can also be found in gift shops, including…
• Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas
• Dallas World Aquarium in Downtown Dallas
• Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth
• The Stockyards in Fort Worth
Contact Info:
- Website: www.EricHansonArtwork.com
- Phone: 214-728-7058
- Email: info@EricHansonArtwork.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/EricHansonArtwork
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/EricHansonArtwork
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
