Giant Artists | Creators Eric Junker Bio

Eric Junker is a fine artist, painter, installation artist, and graphic designer whose style is unmistakable: graphic, bold, and loose, yet it adheres to a clear structure that’s all its own. He incorporates elements of the natural world, like birds, leaves, the sun, and there’s often an antic quality—a kind of orchestrated chaos—with faces, limbs, and bodies askew and sometimes out of scale. While his work has a tactile, made-by-hand grit to it, it’s always beautiful. Sublime, even. Eric calls his style California-inspired psychedelic nature pop, and once you’ve seen it, you never forget it.

Brands ranging from Louis Vuitton and Coach to Oculus, Target, and Toms have approached Eric to collaborate, knowing he can offer them a hard-to-find combination of strategy, street cred, and singular artwork. Patagonia commissioned him to design work for their “Vote the Environment” campaign and to paint a storefront mural to show its support for STAND-L.A., an organization dedicated to ending the drilling of oil in Los Angeles neighborhoods. Westfield Topanga & the Village shopping mall brought him in to enliven the interiors of its retail space with enormous wall murals that burst with color and nature. He’s done product collaborations with fashion brand Fred Segal, he’s designed surfboards and skateboards, and during the height of the pandemic, he even painted a tent with a vibrant design that made sheltering in place feel like the coolest vacation ever.

Eric has also collaborated with some of the most famous chefs in the country, including Roy Choi, Andrew Carmellini, Michael Cimarusti, Susan Goin, Matt Molina, Eric Greenspan, and Nancy Silverton. He's painted murals, collaborated on interior design, designed posters, designed merch, and developed restaurant brands and concepts.

Eric, who studied art and design at UCLA and is currently a lecturer at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and Design, is the cofounder of the advertising and marketing agency Wagner/Junker. With offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, the firm served the design, marketing, and branding needs of restaurants, hotels, casinos, and real estate developers across the country.

He’s also an activist. Eric creates work for causes he believes in, including voting activism, homeless youth empowerment, and the environment, and he finds clever ways to amplify his impact. During the pivotal BLM protests of 2020, he sold $30 “Resist Hate” placard-making kits and funneled the money to the NAACP and BLM. The posters, small but unmistakable, rendered in bright red on crisp white, were the perfect size for holding high above one’s head and quickly became one of the symbols of the movement in Southern California. His get-out-the-vote murals and “wash your hands” campaign garnered national media attention. And he connects with and supports the LA-area community every chance he gets. In May 2022, he led a public mural-painting day in Venice to raise funds for the Venice Family Clinic, which provides quality healthcare for those in need.

ericjunker.com