Eric Wieringa’s current body of work is born out of a professional necessity to simply keep his brush, and skills, moving forward. In that effort Wieringa has found that inanimate, often ephemeral objects provide the opportunity to focus singularly and efficiently, and also experiment freely in his medium of choice, oil paint on panel board. His amassed subjects range from a nostalgic squirt gun, to the rare, hard-earned remaining stub of a Ticonderoga pencil, to a Brook Trout caught in summertime. In response, his audience could argue that “showing an object in isolation brings it significance,” or at least deserves to be considered from a different perspective. Perhaps Wieringa’s biggest take away is that “the irony of painting something as pedestrian as a rusty screwdriver or a used paintbrush underscores an important lesson…that as we work diligently for an imagined outcome, we must not forget to see the beauty of everyday life.” Eric Wieringa is an award-winning American painter working in the realism genre. His work has been featured in multiple publications, such as American Illustration, Poets and Artist Magazine, and Creative Quarterly. Eric was born in Mid-West Michigan in 1979 and has since lived in various cities, including Indianapolis and Saint Louis. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in painting and illustration from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2003, Eric worked a number of jobs to support his creative habit until 2008, when he entered the MFA program at Hartford University. After a successful stint teaching in higher education, Eric has returned to Hastings, Michigan, where he now runs a full-time studio.