Tell me about yourself. Describe your journey as an artist.

I’m a figurative abstract painter based in Wimbledon, born in 1992.

As a Child, I was always doing something related to art; I was often told off at school for doodling in class. I went onto college and university to study Fine Art. I was never meant to have gone to university as I didn’t have the required grades in GCSE English, but the lecturers saw my potential in my portfolio. I graduated with a First in my degree at The University of Chichester and went on to graduate with an MA in Fine Art.

When university was over, I was excited to build my career as an artist. I acquired a local studio in Chichester, where I painted and applied to everything I could while holding down a part-time retail job.

After a year, I returned home to Wimbledon where I took part in a few fairs, group exhibitions and short listings. Each event would eventually, go on to more, such as; solo exhibitions, exhibiting in New York, a feature on a Channel 4 episode of “Flawless”, exhibiting at “The Other Art Fair”, selling works around the world and being represented by a few galleries.

During the pandemic, I felt a subconscious shift in my work, it was less about the identity of the subject and more about the nature of the paint. When the world slowly returned to normal, I noticed the public gravitated towards my work more. Since then, I been creating outside of my comfort zone, allowing the piece to be enough and relinquish control by not overworking my art and so far, its paying off.

My work reflects on communication, the fascination and celebrations of individuals and their character.

How has being dyslexic been influential to creating your artwork?

Had I not been dyslexic, I probably wouldn’t have gone down the route of becoming an artist. At a young age I fell behind at school as I couldn’t read or follow instructions as easily as my fellow students. Art was the one thing I excelled in.

Today I still feel the difficulty of navigating through the world to communicate my point. But art does something for me that words can’t do. I feel more understood and recognised from it.

I see that my paintings are communicating to the viewer. I see the public trying to understand the affect it has on them; at times the viewer can’t grasp the words. I believe this wouldn’t have been as affective had I not been dyslexic.

When did you develop your style? What do you think makes your work unique?

When I was at university, I was exposed to many artists that caught my attention. I studied their artworks and spent a lot of time looking, making notes, and breaking down how they manipulated the paint to create the effects they had on me.

After university I began to expand, explore, and challenge my art practice. To this day still, when I paint, its challenging which I’m grateful for. If it wasn’t, I probably wouldn’t have the vibrant body of work I create today.

I believe my work is unique because of several elements working together:

The strong colours (I really love artworks that take over a room).
The scale, which can engulf the viewer and when up close, the random marks, but from a far it all comes together as one piece.
Finally, it is the subject, there needs to be something about the subject that I think would work with my style.

I have witnessed a few times people have been caught off guard from my paintings, they stand and study the work, even come back to look at them again. Those that can’t walk away, end up purchasing them to add to their lives.

How would you describe the application of your brush strokes?

Organised chaos!

I dart around the canvas adding multiple colours and marks, often it looks random.

Brush stroke by brush stroke the image starts to form. When it is at the stage that the subject is recognisable, I fracture the subject with paint to the point where the viewer fills in the parts they don’t understand, this keeps the viewer even more engaged.

Many of your portraits contain blue brush strokes, why is this? How is colour used to show emotion in your work?

Blue is a colour with so much range, it creates a sense of depth and mystery like the sea, it can lift or deepen the mood of the painting. It is also one of those contrasting colours that disrupts and cuts through the subject. It also activates the surrounding colours and make them pop more than they would.

The thing about colour is that it creates a vocabulary without using words. Many of my subjects are still, expressionless, or pondering, it’s the colour which is doing all the talking to the viewer. Many people take their time when looking at my paintings, they then explain how they feel or ask why I created a moody or up lifting subject. To which I reply “I didn’t, the colour did and it’s what the colour means to you”.

Colour can bring out a subject’s character and illuminate their presence.

Do any of your paintings reflect how you are feeling?

I think on a subconscious level and maybe spiritually, they do. Often when I paint, I feel I’m sailing into the unknown, working something out in my life. When reaching the final result, I feel a sense of relief and release, like this is how I been wanting to feel this whole time.

There’s nothing wrong with different artworks having a wide range of emotions, whether they are positive or negative. Sometimes we need to feel human.

Tell me about your painting process from start to finish of one of your works. What materials do you use?

I spend some time selecting my subject to paint, I then play around with what colours would suit this piece, the aura, the narrative. I only have a partial image in my head, I never know what the painting will look like until it is finished.

Next, I sketch my subject on a stretched canvas in charcoal and pencil. Then I add a washed layer of a transparent oil paint colour over all the canvas. The first colour sets the tone of the painting and continue to add layers.

My mind is constantly whizzing around the canvas, where to keep adding paint, where to stop adding paint, even scrape off paint. I work on multiple pieces at a time, it keeps me interested and can also spread a contrasting pallet onto the next piece.

I spend a lot of time standing back to look at my work. When I come to a natural conclusion, I say “stop, that’s it, you’re done”.

I then go on to make my own frames which is as exciting as the painting, by choosing a colour that would help the frame compliment the artwork.

I feel the pieces are truly finished when they are out of my studio and hanging up in the world. My studio walls are as chaotically layered in paint as my artwork, so they never really stand out to me in the studio. When the work is out there for viewers to see, you aren’t looking at just a painting, you’re seeing a glimpse of my studio space, my life as an artist.

Out of all your work, which piece are you most proud of?

That is difficult to say, as time goes on my view will change, back at university I would say my first biggest piece with big brushes, as it was new to me and created an impact.

Currently there are 2 paintings.

“Entranced”, (The title is spot on). It’s one of those paintings that I keep coming back to. It has so many different qualities, sometimes I look at it and discover interesting sections that I forgot about. I remember it was a piece I was struggling with for some time, knowing it was missing something. When I added the final mark, I knew that was it.

“Unforgettable Gaze”, my most recent piece. For me, it is more the process, there was less layering, less detail, allowing parts of the painting to be organic. It was a piece I spent less time on, and yet it had a massive response from the public. So much so, that it sold after 3 hours of being exhibited.

I learnt that sometimes less is more, from this piece.

Who is your favourite artist? If they were sat next to you right now, what would you ask them?

It would be Jenny Saville; I would ask her about her approach to painting. I would love to ask about her mindset when approaching a new body of work. I would love to ask her about the times she took risks in her paintings, when she felt most nervous and why.

I would also love to meet Van Gogh and Picasso. Though in their presence you would need to sit, listen, and absorb. My only questions to them would be about resilience and approach.

Why do you think art is important in society?

Well simply put, without art there is no society.

Our society and our man-made world was built on art. How many doctors, nurses, scientists, engineers, mechanics, and other important professions could perform their jobs without studying illustrations, blueprints, and diagrams.

Without visual aid, we would not be able to advance as far as we have.

Do you think children would learn as fast if there was no imagery around?

Art can also have many different meanings to individuals or a collective, it can bring everyone together; it could be an identity, a culture, or a country. It can make us question our world, create an angry mob, or ignite a passionate group.

Art came before literature. It was one of our early forms of communications and is as important still to this day.

https://www.bradkennystudio.com

ARTIST INTERVIEW: Brad Kenny