Brad Kenny

Brad specialise in portraiture and figurative representation, he has always been fascinated and inspired by an artist’s ability to capture the human condition. He finds himself deeply attracted to the Expressionist characteristics of strong, even lurid, colours, abstraction/distortion, alienation and social exclusion, exploring human emotions, instincts, identity, character and narrative. Each painting is a challenge bringing a journey of anxiety, mistakes, hesitations and frustrations and involves his instinctive physical/emotional/imaginative style. Brad favours strong brush strokes and often incorporate the unpredictable nature of chaos, including gestural splashes and dripping and nonrepresentational colours that come together in form and composition.

As a dyslexic artist self-portraiture provides for him a private diary and public autobiography. He finds that painting and drawing is a language for him that is not easily written or verbally expressed; it is a way of communicating and interpreting. He identified with contemporary artist, Antony Micallef, (UK, 1975), who stated ‘I am terribly dyslexic, so painting and drawing became a way of expressing myself’.
Brad prefers the medium of oil paint, however he often works with acrylic, watercolour, pen, charcoal, ink and pencil. He has been fortunate to be able to show many of his paintings and have achieved sales in Europe and the USA. Brad aspires to be able to present his paintings to as wide an audience as possible. He is satisfied with a completed painting if he feels that is has challenged him and evokes intended and unintended interpretations and provoke reactions.

There is always a relationship between an artist and his or her subject. In the case of the portrait/figurative painter, Brad believes, the ability and technique to apply the tactile medium of oil paint and create form coexists alongside a unique ability to explore and evoke a reaction through representation of intimacy, expression, individuality, emotion and identity.

The integrity of representation can sometimes be interrupted by the relationship and requirements of the sitter. So far in his career, to explore authenticity of the individual, he has at times, indulged in a consideration of his contemporary self/identity through self-portraiture.
In these paintings he portrays himself as an intensely single minded subject focused on unease and contemplation; this is intended to represent a societal angst, particularly among his own mid 20s age group, of life, love, health, political uncertainty and for the individual, isolation and loneliness. He relies on his own subjective sense of society and personal relationships and his own range of health and emotional experiences to promote authenticity of representation in my paintings.