A koi doesn't hold still for a portrait. Eric Alfaro paints it anyway, in paint thick enough to hold the motion the fish never stopped making.
In February 2026, that persistence put Alfaro's Fishbowl series on the cover of Dan's Papers Palm Beach, marked by a Carousel Fine Art event in West Palm Beach built around the feature. A year earlier, Buckhead Village saw the same body of work in person, when "Eric Alfaro: Artist Spotlight" named the Fishbowl Study one of three series anchoring the show.
What Is the Fishbowl Series?
Where Alfaro's better-known Blossom Series and Water Lilies use flowers to hold his signature impasto technique, the Fishbowl Series swaps still life for aquarium life: koi ponds, fishbowls, and water rendered thick enough to catch light the way the real surface does. It's the same painter, the same spatula-built texture, aimed at a subject that moves on its own.
For the full picture of his training and his other series, start with Eric Alfaro: A Collector's Guide to the Artist.
The Technique, Applied to Water Instead of Flowers
Alfaro builds his paintings in heavy impasto, layering oil or acrylic with brushes, palette knives, and his hands until the paint itself has dimension, then disrupting the surface with smudged, motion-blurred passages. On a flower, that disruption reads as a bloom caught mid-transition. On water, it does something different: it suggests a fish that just moved, a ripple that hasn't settled, light bending through a surface that won't sit flat. The technique is identical. The problem it's solving is not.
The Works
The series spans works dated as early as 2021 and as recent as this year, evidence that Alfaro has kept returning to water as a subject rather than treating it as a single finished project: Koi Pond 05 (2021), Turquoise Waters 03 and Light (2022), Dancing in the Water (2023), Blue Aquarium (2024), Aquarium, Aquatic Dancers, and Dancers (2026), and Teal Aquarium (2025) round out the body of work, alongside The Dance (2025), a title that recurs across the series in different years and palettes.
Across all of them, the throughline is the one Alfaro has described in his own words: a search for "environments that pivot between traditional and contemporary ideology," here applied to the oldest still-life subject there is, water, and the oldest and hardest thing to paint inside it: motion.
Where You've Already Seen It
Carousel gave the series its first dedicated spotlight at "Eric Alfaro: Artist Spotlight," held in Buckhead Village, Atlanta, from February 27 to March 7, 2025, where the Fishbowl Study was shown alongside his Wildflowers and figurative work. It resurfaced a year later on a larger stage: a February 2026 Dan's Papers Palm Beach cover feature, celebrated with "Beyond the Cover: Eric Alfaro's Fishbowl at Carousel Fine Art," an evening event at the gallery's West Palm Beach location.
Collecting From the Fishbowl Series
Carousel Fine Art represents Alfaro across its Miami, Atlanta, and Saint-Tropez locations, with rotating inventory across all of his series, the Fishbowl works included. Availability shifts as pieces sell and new works are completed, so the most current way to see what's on hand is to reach out directly.
FAQ
What is Eric Alfaro's Fishbowl series?
A body of work applying Alfaro's signature heavy-impasto technique to koi ponds, fishbowls, and aquarium scenes, exploring water and motion the way his better-known Blossom Series explores flowers.
Is the Fishbowl series different from the Blossom Series or Water Lilies?
Yes. The Blossom Series and Water Lilies are floral and garden still lifes. The Fishbowl series uses the same technique on a different subject, koi and aquarium water, built around suggesting the movement of live fish rather than a static bloom.
Where has the Fishbowl series been exhibited?
Carousel Fine Art spotlighted it at "Eric Alfaro: Artist Spotlight" in Atlanta (February–March 2025) and again for a Dan's Papers Palm Beach cover feature event in West Palm Beach (February 2026).
Where can I see or buy work from the Fishbowl series?
Carousel Fine Art represents Eric Alfaro across its Miami, Atlanta, and Chicago locations. Contact the gallery directly for current availability.
Conclusion
The fish in these paintings never stopped moving long enough to be studied. Alfaro built the paint thick enough to move with them anyway.
To view available works from the Fishbowl series, or arrange a private viewing at Carousel's Miami, Atlanta, or Chicago locations, see his full collection or reach out to the gallery directly.
