Select Works
SERENITY
Brian’s first painting. Once an abandoned canvas, this hidden treasure unwittingly led Brian to discover his true connection with painting. Its scrappy turquoise gradient was gessoed over with the only white paint on hand, “Sherwin Williams Flat White”. Serenity challenges the convention of spatial hierarchy within a composition. The up-ward looking woman is overshadowed by her own hair... Energetic and Dynamic, the hair itself seems to be searching, moving and dominating the space while the woman is enslaved by it.
INKWELLTries to answer the question of how to create darkness darker than the darkest paint there is. Inkwell ponders this question by not using any black at all except in the very center of the woman’s eye- a well of blackness so deep and full it begins to overflow. When the lights are off, Inkwell seems as if it’s subject is herself pushing her face towards the viewer.
FREEZE
Freeze explores the relationship between beauty and perspective. Attributes we find most beautiful are thought so only in relationship to the distance we put between them and ourselves. The surface of the subjects skin - replete with freckles, moles, pores, and hairs - is quite grisly when viewed up-close. But like that of a real face, it’s pores and hairs melt into something much more appealing when looked at from afar.
INTERMISSIONstudies the relationship between light and vulnerability. naked woman, imprisoned by the enormity of her own hat, sits under an oppressive beam of light, her chin sticking out as if to challenge it.
A departure from conventional paint brushes, Brian employed an arsenal of household accoutrements to apply paint stemming from cotton balls and ear swabs, to toothbrushes and SOS scrubber pads. This piece depicts a young person engulfed in a plum of dust and gripping her own dust covered skin. The painting is a struggle between dichotomies.
Light and dark, gay and straight, feminine and masculine. The subject is androgynous. We don’t know if she is man or woman, and the white powder obscures the portrayal of race.
MOONDUSTEYE OF PROVIDENCEThe painting shows a profile of a man with his knees to his chest. When we look harder we notice another figure beneath him, pulling him back as he leans forward. The choreography of the two men, and the hidden and almost unnoticeable man beneath him, represents the challenges I face with interpersonal relationships. While I am at times given foundation and support from my lover, I also feel shackled and constrained in the dark.
REBIRTHRebirth explores the varying properties of water and its effect on human skin. Sometimes slow like molasses and sometimes explosive and shiny, the way water moves and morphs can tell a story as unique as the skin onto which it collides.
DELIVERYAcrylic on Canvas.
A rearrangement of energy occurs when we look upwards. A burden too heavy to bear is released. Light is rechanneled, and our spirit is revived. The dramatic interplay of light and shadow created in “Delivery” speaks to the cathartic beauty in this one simple act.
