Kirkland

Bray

Kirkland Bray embarks on a quest to uncover the unexpected components hidden within the detritus of contemporary society. Utilizing these remnants as a foundation for his artistic practice, Bray adopts a minimalist methodology, visually dismantling objects. In other instances, he employs vivid hues to generate kaleidoscopic patterns. The collages serve as a poetic representation of our daily existence, with each piece narrating its own captivating vignette.

Collage allows me to approach a work of art on different terms than a painting and frees me up to experiment more with shape, subject, and negative space. I have always had a fondness of old paper and use it in some form for all of my collages. It’s a more immediate process than painting and I can complete a few if I am having a good session in my studio.

Kirkland Bray

Most of what I create, from collages to paintings, has a found element — a book oxidized by a note placed inside its pages decades before or a rejected piece of partially dyed canvas. With my collages, I'm inspired by the hunt to find new materials and subject matter and the challenge of executing and editing. A piece is finished when the combination of shapes, colors, and ideas come together like a puzzle and when the positive and negative space have equal say. Many of my paintings expand upon my “Gathering” series — works of surrealistic landscapes with peculiar masses of people. Many of these pieces evolve from recent travels and outdoor escapes where I find myself searching for sparks of inspiration in landscapes and quirkiness in nature. Some scenes become backdrops and some I sculpt and alter to fit an obnoxious number of humans. I make art to see how far from my comfort zone I can go, to make something beautiful from something discarded, and to discover new directions in both process and subject.

Kirkland Bray

Kirkland Bray was born in 1973 in Memphis, Tennessee. He currently lives and works in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA.

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