Artist Statement
I grew up in Saint Louis, Missouri, a city at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. It’s a place full of energy, with great history, and present-day challenges indicative of modern times. These factors and the influence of my father, a political science professor contributes to genuinely contemporary content.My visual language is mainly composed from photographic images because I feel like they increasingly control daily experience. I use a painting process where transparent and opaque layers accumulate to develop the work in a way similar to dark room photography. This Renaissance technique engages with the physicality and philosophy of paint, creating tension between loose washy strokes and thick juicy marks. A major source for the imagery I use is the Internet. The Internet’s ability to bind us together through a shareable bank of snapshots is fascinating. The rapid movement and multitude of these moments transcends control and gives the masses a powerful weapon. At the same time governments and private institutions have reacted with an explicit dissemination of cultural narratives that has ultimately polarized consensus. This is important because it seems like my inner spaces are progressively shrinking and encroached upon by outside forces. I oppose the concreteness of external narratives and within my artwork embrace the amalgamation, something that is incorporated by parts but with no particular narrative. To me the modern world is also like this, a sort of cultural pangaea united by mishmashes of appropriated and repurposed icons and rituals.
View Bryan’s website
“Bryan has shown himself to be a serious and dedicated individual. I get the sense that he’s in this for the long haul and will continue to develop as an artist over the years to come.”
– David Brody, Professor of Painting + Drawing
Committee
- David Brody (Painting + Drawing)
- Ann Gale (Painting + Drawing)
- Philip Govedare (Painting + Drawing)
- Denzil Hurley (Painting + Drawing)
- Zhi Lin (Painting + Drawing)
- Helen O’Toole (Painting + Drawing)
