Born and raised in Westfield, NJ, Eric Soller grew up with a pencil in his hand. Throughout high school and college, his main focus was drawing, painting and printmaking. After graduated from the University of South Florida in 1980 with a BFA in Lithography, Eric began his career in commercial arts. He worked as an illustrator in the Northeast around Portland, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts. The next twenty-five years were spent in the graphic design and illustration worlds of advertising, marketing and product design. Eric created illustrations for large and small corporate clients, manufacturers and design studios. As a graphic and product designer, he worked for marketing agencies and product companies through the 1980s and 90s. He then moved to Chicago, Illinois in 2001 to provide creative services for an international toy company. In 2004, while living and working in Chicago, Eric had the opportunity to attend his first live race. As a casual follower of the sport, he had not yet experienced the excitement of race-day. After witnessing the 2004 Brickyard 400, NASCAR grabbed his attention. Within no time, the artist started to visualize ways to combine these vibrant sport visuals with his passion for painting. New opportunities presented Eric with a job offer from a NASCAR licensee. He and his wife moved to the center of the NASCAR universe, Charlotte, North Carolina. This move eventually led Eric to pit road, where he began photographing these eye-catching events -- inspiration for these paintings. Starting in the summer of 2006, capturing hundreds of images each race weekend, Eric began developing these into paintings. Drawn out on illustration board and painted in gouache, by using these photographs as reference, each painting is created to capture the passion and finesse of the sport. Celebrating the excitement that takes place in the pits, these paintings accurately depict race moments, caught in time, with an attention to detail that conveys the textures, sensations and excitement of the moment. Eric is an officially licensed artist of NASCAR, also licensed by the team(s) of each specific painting.