This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| A painter in oil in abstract-realist style of figures and animals,
Brian Kershisnik conveys both humor and tension about male and female
relationships and the balance of power between them. The
underlying idea is that love is complicated and difficult, and that
pressures of today's society are especially challenging. His
artwork also reflects his religious beliefs as a Mormon, and one of his
canvases is titled St. Joseph of Arimathea. In some of
his paintings, figures and animals seem to be flying and dancing
around---men, women, cats and black dogs, in memory of his pet
Labrador/mixed breed companion, Mordecai. Many of his people and
animals have elongated shapes in the tradition of Italian painter
Amedeo Modigliani, 1884-1920.
Kershisnik is a resident of Kanosh, Utah, "a no-stoplight hamlet
boasting 500 people, one grocery store, a gas station, and a hair
salon." (106) Ancestors of his wife, Suzanne, founded the town, where
she is very active in community affairs including the founding of a
community theatre for children. He grew up with a geologist
father, which meant the family moved frequently. He went to
schools in Pakistan, Thailand, Norway and Angola, and spent many
summers of his childhood with relatives in Wyoming. Often feeling
like an outsider, he drew pictures to entertain himself.
For
college, he enrolled at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah and
majored in fine art, completing a B.F.A. degree in Painting in
1988. He spent time as a Mormon missionary in Denmark, and in
1991 earned an M.F.A. in Fine Art in printmaking in
Austin at the University of Texas. For a long time, his major
interest was figures, but not specific people---just ones who
represented ideas or concepts. In 1997 and 1998, he was a
Fellowship Finalist in the Visual Arts for the Utah Arts Council, and
in 1996, won Best of Sho at the 72nd Utah Spring Salon at the
Springville Museum of Art.
His studio is 1000 square feet in a red-stone building in a former
dance-hall space, and his working method is to have a number of
paintings in process rather than completing them one by
one. He plays all kinds of lively music when painting
including rock, choral, bossa nova and folk. A goal for him in
2006 is to complete works for a solo exhibition at the Utah Museum of
Fine Arts beginning February 2007.
Sources include:
Bonnie Gangelhoff, "Telling Tales", Southwest Art, September 2006, pp. 106-109
Website of the artist
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