About Eric
One of Madison’s best-known creatives, Eric Phagan is a prolific visual artist across multiple disciplines. His drawings, paintings, and sculptures are instantly recognizable and capture figures, scenes, and life in the Ohio River Valley with a distinctive style.
Eric is a 2006 graduate of the Herron School of Art and Design, Indianapolis, with a BFA in Ceramics and a Minor in Art History. He studied at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, Summer 2006, and abroad in Paris, France, Spring 2005. He is a nationally recognized Indiana Artisan, and is widely collected today. He has shown in multiple juried and solo exhibitions across the nation and has gallery representation at Veronique Galleries in Cincinnati, Ohio, and HG Galleries in Orlando, Florida. Public collections of his work include: San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, San Angelo, Texas (Upstream); Gladding McBean Terra Cotta Factory, Lincoln, California, (Frankenstein); Indiana University Medical Building, Indianapolis, Indiana (Sailor Man); and The City of Madison, Madison, Indiana, (Ties That Bind). In 2012 Eric opened his own gallery/studio inside Gallery 115, at 115 E. Main Street, in historic downtown Madison, Indiana. He’s been a full time art teacher for Madison Consolidated Schools since 2012, and was recently chosen as a top 10 Teacher of the Year for 2024 by the State of Indiana.
When not busy creating art, teaching, or spending time with his family, Eric moonlights as the drummer for local rockabilly favorites Slick River Rockets.
Artist Statement
As a child, I remember being fascinated by the things I could not fathom. Places, people, memories, and dreams (as objects) became intriguing to me. I would record my own impression of the world around me by creating drawings to help me understand the way I had seen them.
Time has always been a factor in my work. Layered lines over raw textures and torn surfaces gives a validation of age, and this progress captures my imagination. Like old film or a photograph, my work becomes a snapshot or experience in time. Each line represents both a mark of memory or an experience passing through time.
The recordings of my experiences are my work… an understanding of my life, the world around and before me. It’s a similar world to my childhood imaginings, which in turn, becomes everything that I know I am.
-Eric S. Phagan